American Indian Names

The Sunflower has many native names. The Omaha and Ponca name is "zha-zi" which means "yellow weed". The Kiowa name is "ho-son-a" which means "looking at you". The Dakota names is "wahch-zizi" which means "yellow flower".The Pawnee names is "kiriktara- kata" which means yellow eyes. As you can see there are many names for the sunflower 

The scientific name reflects the fact that the flower head turns to face the sun. In Greek, helios means "sun" and anthos means "flower" Annuas refrers to the fact that this plant is annual.

 Description

The sunflower flowe grows from 3 to 6 inches across with a brown or purple central disk and numerous golden rays. Each plant grows 3 to 8 feet high.It has a slender stalk and triangular leaves.  this plant is very rough. Cultivated varieties are larger, up to 16 feet tall. Sunflower are related to daisies, aster, marigolds and danelions.

 

                            

 
Habitat and Location

You can find sun flowers in ditches. you can also find them in old fields, on disturbed soil, and dry open ground.  It is most prevalent in the prairies in the midest. It is the state flower of Kansas. It grows scsttered in the East, and it's range extends to the West Coast. There are around sixty species in the North and South America. It can be found in waste and culitvated ground,low, medows, prairies, along roadsides and railroads.
                                                
Uses

The sunflower was used in many different ways. the part uesd, fruits, popularly called seeds, raw, roasted, or dried and ground, as a source of oil;flowerbuds were boiled; roasted shells or seeds foe coffe substitutes. Different tribes had their own uses of the plant. The White Mountain Apache used it as a snakebite remedy, they appied it to the snakebites. The Dakots's used it as a analgesic, infusion of the flower used for the chest pain. They also used  it as pulmonary aid, which was a decoction of flower heads taken for pulmonary troubles. Oil from seeds was used as paint for the face or body. Dried powder seeds mixed int cakes. it was used as a spider medicine. The juice was applied to cuts. The sunflower was used in liniment for the War Dances.

This Page was last update: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 1:58:34 PM
This page was originally posted: 11/13/06; 10:24:12 AM.
Copyright 2008 Plants of the Omaha Indian Reservation

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