urbpan | 365 Urban Species. #232: Sunflower

Photo by

cottonmanifesto. Location: Ward's Pond, Boston.

Urban species #232: Sunflower Helianthus annuus

Sunflower seeds are relatively large, fatty, and tasty. They are the staple filling for most birdfeeders. With a feeder full of sunflower seeds in Boston, you can attract chickadees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, blue jays, house sparrows and squirrels, just for starters. The presence of feeders full of sunflower seeds lured formerly more southern species like the cardinal and titmouse to live in New England year-round. These animals spill the sunflower seeds on the ground, where they are eaten by pigeons, mourning doves, juncos, chipmunks, and if you live in the right neighborhood, wild turkeys and even white-tailed deer. In other cities there will be some other assemblage of urban species drawn to this food source. Some of these species, notably the jays and woodpeckers, carry the seed away, and cache it to be eaten later. Uneaten seed may germinate and result in "volunteer" (to use a nice bit of gardener jargon) sunflowers.

The plant itself is familiar to all: a single rough stalk topped with a large cheery disc surrounded by rays, facing the sun, and appearing to have been crafted in its image. It is native to western North America, where the indigenous people cultivated them, favoring the plants with the biggest seeds. It was brought to Europe, where further cultivation took place, and new varieties were reintroduced to North America. Industrial cultivation for flowers, seeds, and seed oil has helped make it well known to nearly everyone on earth. There are many different species, but the most familiar, and most often cultivated species is the common sunflower, Helianthus annuus.

Wild sunflowers can grow to nearly ten feet tall, hoisting their payload of seeds up to where only the most agile diners, often goldfinches, can reach. Squirrels will cheat, and chew the whole plant to the ground. The plant must reproduce by seed, and is an annual, dying away completely in winter. Then the birdfeeders are filled and put out, and the urban life cycle starts again.

A sunflower seed cached in a stone wall (in the Riverway, in the wall of the stairway leading to Longwood Ave.) sprouted in June of this year. The plant did not survive to flower. Photo by

urbpan.

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I planted five by the side of my house this year. They delight me with their tenacity. They turn their heads to follow the sun from dawn to dusk. Tough and optimistic, I try to emulate them. City life is hard.

I came to this thread late via a link from the Concord website, although I live in Stoughton, not Concord.
About ten years ago I transplanted some sunflower sprouts from under my feeder to my garden and now hundreds of sprouts appear each year from the seeds the birds have scattered. I weed out most of them, transplant 50-60 to form a windbreak for the rest of the garden and have another 50-60 scattered throughout the potatoes etc.
As I look out onto my garden right now, I see hundreds of bright yellow blossoms (these plants produce many smaller heads, 2-6in in diameter) with goldfinches flitting between them. These are the most beautiful weeds that I have ever dealt with.
-Suburban pantheist

Say, what link from what Concord website?

There is a Yahoo community discussion forum in Concord ( I got onto it for Thoreauvian purposes) in which someone had found your website and the references to groudnuts. They provided the link and I followed it. I posted something on it today regarding Thoreau's journal entry on groundnuts on Aug 31, 1857.

By the way, this is a neat site. It doesn't tempt me to live in the city, but there is a lot of appreciation of nature here, that I often do not find on the Thoreau and Concord sites. I would post a picture of my explosion of sunflowers, but I don't know how to post pictures on this site.

Yesterday, I heard a hawk scream and looked up. There was a smaller red tail circling above me, screaming every 30 seconds or so. Above it (a her, I'm assuming) was a larger hawk, but of the same outline, too high to discern a red tail, wheeling in larger circles many feet above her...silent. Over time, they took their matched soaring off into the wooded land to the south west. A neat moment.

A pantheist out in God's country

Your sunflower sprout made me sad.

I bet I have Toxoplasmosis.

been playing in the cat shit again?

Toxoplasmosis certainly explains my neuroticism and changing the litter box has been a lifelong passion. On the bright side, I can be French and super smart. Is super slutty a benefit or a drawback?

http://www.7days.ae/2006/08/06/beware-of-the-cat-people.html
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/08/the_cultureshaping_parasite.php

i swear i had toxo when i lived w/7 cats. how could you not?

oh, and it's a benefit.

Haha! That's how I was leaning.

I mean, that's how I was sexily leaning. With bosoms... ah never mind. This thread that I am mucking up isn't friends locked. There could be 500 people reading this.

Great post. Never thought that much about my sunflowers I have every year on my balcony from seed to ashes ...

Thanks!

365 Urban Species. #232: Sunflower

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sunflowers

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Can compassion be taken too far?

whoa, you dirty girl.

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