Sunflower

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus), a magnificent Composite, said to be a native of Mexico and Peru and introduced, like its congener the Jerusalem artichoke, about the end of the 16th century. It has large coarse leaves and flower-heads a foot or more in diameter, which are great favourites with bees. It does not ripen its fruits so regularly in this country as in Hungary and Central Russia where it is largely cultivated. The leaves form a green fodder; the stems can be burnt for fuel or for potash, in which they are rich; and the fruits can be roasted and used for coffee, ground into meal for tea-cakes, eaten as nuts, used for poultry, pigs, and even cattle, being superior to linseed; or crushed, as they are in Russia, for oil, of which they yield 16 to 26 per cent. The oil is used for salad oil, soap-making, and painting, and the residual cake as cattle-food.