Helianthus annuus

• English: sunflower
• French: tournesol

see more European names

• subsp. lenticularis (Dougl.) Cockerell (1914) is the wild form from western North America. It is many branches with small heads.
• subsp. annuus var. annuus is a weedy form from eastern North America.
• subsp. annuus var. macrocarpus (DC). Cockerell (1914) includes cultivated forms, which have only one stem and a terminal big head.

• Cultivars used for their seeds eaten as snacks have usually big heads and big akenes striped with brown and white.
• Cultivars grown for the extraction of oil have small heads and small black akenes.
  • Usual oil sunflower cultivars give an oil with 24% oleic acid and 65% linoleic acid.
  • High oleic cultivars give an oil with 50% to 90% oleic acid. They must be grown in isolation from

• Historical illustrations
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  Chrysanthemum perunianum (Dodoens 1568)

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  Chrysanth. perunianum (Dodoens 1569)

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  Chrysanthemum peruvianum (Dodoens 1583)

It comes from the same wood engraving. It represents a cultivated type with only one big head. Leaves are drawn as alternate, although they are in fact opposite decussate.

During centuries, sunflower was grown as an ornamental. Targioni-Tozzetti mentions it as an ornamental, and Candolle omits it because he did not deal with ornamentals.

Read Targioni-Tozzetti (1853), Gray & Trumbull (1883) and Sturtevant (1919) articles.

• Ecocrop
• GRIN
• IPNI
• Mansfeld
• Moerman: search with Helianthus annuus.
• Plants for a Future
• Purdue New Crops
• Prota4U