Comments
TheSunflowerSeeds t1_j4rnbrh wrote
The United States are not the largest producers of sunflowers, and yet even here over 1.7 million acres were planted in 2014 and probably more each year since. Much of which can be found in North Dakota.
andyhfell OP t1_j4rjpqt wrote
Link to paper (eLife): https://elifesciences.org/articles/80984
pistachioQ t1_j4zo8x2 wrote
thank you for linking the paper! its always a hassle to try and find the papers an article references. the links in the articles never work when i use the app.
fenrael23 t1_j4rqvho wrote
The pattern of the sunflower seeds is the Fibonacci sequence: https://momath.org/home/fibonacci-numbers-of-sunflower-seed-spirals/#:~:text=The%20sunflower%20seed%20pattern%20used,find%20spirals%20in%20this%20pattern.
Even bees get down with the Fibonacci sequence: https://wild.maths.org/fibonacci-and-bees
TequillaShotz t1_j4t2x8l wrote
If you watch a sunflower during this blooming period, you will see that it tracks the sun - facing toward the E in the morning and following the sun across the sky until it ends the day facing W.
andyhfell OP t1_j52fd6a wrote
Which is also controlled by the circadian clock! https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/sunflowers-move-clock
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psycho-logique t1_j4rna4m wrote
From the abstract:
"Here, we show that the circadian clock controls the timing of late-stage floret development, or anthesis, in domesticated sunflowers. In these plants, up to thousands of individual florets are tightly packed onto a capitulum disk. While early floret development occurs continuously across capitula to generate iconic spiral phyllotaxy, during anthesis floret development occurs in discrete ring-like pseudowhorls with up to hundreds of florets undergoing simultaneous maturation. "
That's so interesting.