Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson CLX · Topic 24: Summer and fall garden flowers
160. The sunflower
Goal: Your child takes a sunflower apart into its florets, follows the blooming from the rim to the center over several days, and decides whether sunflowers really follow the sun.
You'll need
- Nature notebook, pencil and colored pencils
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- A sunflower that has just begun to bloom, in the garden or in a jar of water
- A second, partly bloomed sunflower to cut in half
- A small knife for the adult
- Tweezers or a toothpick
What's in the book
A Teacher's Story with a photograph of a sunflower and a drawing of its florets, and the lesson: Leading thought, a detailed Method and ten questions.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Comstock says early September, when school opens, is the time. Study sunflowers where they grow, or bring one in and stand it in water. Bees will be busy on these flowers: watch quietly from a little distance and don't swat.
The leading thought
The sunflower is not a single flower, but is a large family of flowers living together; and each little flower, or floret, as it is called, has its own work to do for the family welfare.
This is the lesson Comstock wanted children to do first, before the composite outline in Lesson CXXXV.
Four florets
Following Comstock's method: an adult cuts a partly bloomed head in half. With tweezers, take out a bud from the center, an open floret with its dark tube, one with two curled yellow stigmas, and a banner-flower.
Study first the bud. Of how many parts is it composed? What will the lower, white part develop into?
Take an open floret with the long, dark brown tube projecting from it.
Banner-flowers
Of what use is the banner-flower to the sunflower family? Do you think that we would plant sunflowers in our gardens for their beauty if they had no banner-flowers?
The pattern
Note the beautiful pattern in which the buds are arranged.
Look for two sets of spirals, one curving each way. Try counting the spirals in one direction.
Does it follow the sun?
Some people declare that it twists its stem so as to face the sun all day. Do you think this is true?
What we know now: young sunflower plants do turn from east to west during the day and back at night. Once the big head opens, most stop turning and face east.
Seeds
What birds are especially fond of sunflower seeds? Of what use are the seeds commercially?
Comstock kept one cut sunflower fourteen days:
it blossomed cheerfully from its rim to its very center
Nature notebook
Draw the four kinds of floret in a row and label them. Then start a week of daily notes on your whole sunflower: how far has the blooming ring moved today?
Afterwards
Leave a ripe head outside in fall and keep a list of the birds that come to it. Goldfinches and chickadees are common visitors.