Sunflowers gladly share golden gift

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A friend of mine is handing out packets of sunshine at her wedding today.

My advice is sow the contents about an inch deep, go easy on the fertilizer and water if nature doesn’t.

Oh, and plant in full sun. (We’re only sowing a few dozen packets of sunshine; there’ll be plenty of rays left to go round, surely.)

Come August, we can reap that glowing gift from the earth to the sun, Helianthus annuus.

More commonly known as the sunflower, Helianthus is anything but common. Its roots are here in the Americas, with native peoples using the plant for food and medicine for thousands of years. Meal, dye and oil were some of the main goods garnered from the sunflower, and even a coffeelike drink could be had by roasting the seeds and then boiling them.

Archaeological evidence dates cultivation of the sunflower to around 2300 B.C. It wouldn’t be until nearly 4,000 years later that Europeans would arrive and discover the power of the sunflower.

When the Spanish landed in the New World, they found images of sunflowers wrought in gold gracing the temples of the sun god of the Incas. The tall flowers were a curiosity, and seeds were sent back to Europe and planted with great expectations. A report out of the Royal Garden in Madrid said the stalks had reached 24 feet in height, while a story from a botanic garden in Padua, Italy, claimed 40 feet.

The flower made its way across Europe as something of an oddity until it reached Russia. There, the potential for production of seed and oil was tapped, resulting in the development of ‘Mammoth Russian.’ The sunflower came full circle when this cultivar was sent back to the United States more than a century ago.

The ‘Mammoth’ variety is best known by gardeners today for its edible seeds, but many of today’s varieties are bred more for show than substance.

One of my favorite mixtures is ‘Bellezza d’Autuno’ (Autumn Beauty), with rich shades of red, rust and gold. I adore ‘Moonbright’ and its lemon yellow petals, and fading away from the golden glow even more is ‘Vanilla Ice,’ with barely a hint of yellow in the face.

‘Teddy Bear’ looks more like an orange chrysanthemum than a sunflower, but that’s part of the appeal. I rather prefer the zing of ‘Floristan,’ however, with its red-brown petals tipped with yellow.

New for me this year is ‘Monet’s Palette,’ a collection of colors from Pinetree Garden Seed (Box 300, New Gloucester 04260; telephone 207-926-3400; www.superseeds.com). Yellows, reds, roses and creams are promised to resemble a pastel watercolor painting when gathered into a bouquet. One can only hope that it will inspire a Monet or van Gogh moment.

The best-looking practical sunflower is Tarahumara, a white-shelled type with golden yellow petals and rings of spring green and gold for the center. This variety from Seeds of Change (www.seedsofchange.com) tops out at 7 feet with its green and gold rings maturing into a robust seed head, providing the birds and squirrels with plenty to eat.

That’s the thing about gathering sunflower seeds. By the time a seed head has developed, it usually has been cleaned out by marauding squirrel gangs. Not that I mind, really. Except I might have plans for those heads.

Sunflower seeds are exceedingly good for you. They are high in minerals, vitamins and essential acids. The protein level is on par with beef, the amount of calcium is higher than soybeans, and only liver and egg yolks have them beat in iron content.

So I may want to take my sunflower seeds, shell them and eat them. Or maybe cook with them. I won’t go so far as to grind them up for meal or roast them for coffee, but there’s this recipe I tweaked a bit from www.allrecipes.com that brings out the best in a cup of sunflower seeds.

Sunflower Seed Drop Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup butter

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon brown sugar

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sunflower seeds

2 cups flaked coconut

Cream together sugar and butter. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour and soda. Add coconut and sunflower seeds. Mix well.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden.

Trust me on this point: Straight out of the oven with a glass of milk, wow. A day later, double wow. Maybe someday I’ll be inspired to venture a teapot of my own sunflower “coffee” to go with them.

Quite a gift, this packet of sunshine. Not only can I stand in awe beneath this golden giant, this sun come to earth, and bask in its glow against a blue sky, but I can share it with the bees and the birds and the squirrels. I can think of the centuries that passed as it made its way from the New World to the Old and then back again. I can wonder about the gardeners before me who planted these seeds and reveled in the unknown.

For today, though, I can rejoice in the love of two people who want to spread their happiness in the radiant guise of a flower.

Janine Pineo is a NEWS copy editor. Her e-mail is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.