Sunflowers

The Kansas Statutes, in designating the sunflower as our state flower, states:

"WHEREAS, Kansas has a native wild flower common throughout her borders, hardy and conspicuous, of definite, unvarying and striking shape, easily sketched, moulded, and carved, having armorial capacities, ideally adapted for artistic reproduction, with its strong, distinct disk and its golden circle of clear glowing rays -- a flower that a child can draw on a slate, a woman can work in silk, or a man can carve on stone or fashion in clay."

(Kansas Statutes 73-1801)

Sunflowers are grown in Kansas gardens, appear in Kansas architecture and show up on Kansas-related websites as iconic symbols of our state. Kansans sing, quilt, paint and wax poetic about Helianthus Annuus. And woe betide any state that considers declaring our much loved symbol a noxious weed!

So let's get out a couple lawn chairs, stroll out into a field of wild sunflowers (bug spray optional!), sit back and ponder this symbol of perpetual optimism as it faces its namesake's journey across the summer sky.

SOME BASIC INFORMATION

Kansas State Flower (Florapedia)
http://www.proflowers.com/flowerguide/kansas

Sunflower: An American Native (Missouri Extension)
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/firstgarden/planning/dictionary/flowers/sunflowers.cfm

WILD SUNFLOWERS IN KANSAS

Kansas Wildflowers website
--Common Sunflower (Kansas state flower)
--Ashy Sunflower
--Hairy Sunflower
--Maximilian Sunflower
--Plains Sunflower
--Stiff Sunflower
--Sawtooth Sunflower
--Tickseed Sunflower
--Willow-Leaf Sunflower
--Other Kansas wild flowers in the sunflower family

Kansas Sunflowers and Prairie Skies
http://www.washburn.edu/cas/art/cyoho/archive/AroundTopeka/cloudsunflowers/

SUNFLOWERS IN POETRY

Selections from Poetry of Kansas
--The Maverick
--The Nodding Sunflowers
--An Ode to the Kansas Sunflower
--Serenade Of The Sunflowers
--Sunflower Fields
--The Sunflower Of Kansas
--When The Sunflowers Bloom
--Ah! Sunflower!

SUNFLOWERS IN YOUR GARDEN

My First Garden
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/firstgarden/planning/dictionary/flowers/sunflowers.cfm
(University of Illinois at Urbana)

The Sunflower Story: Teacher's Guide
http://agweb.okstate.edu/aitc/lessons/intermed/plants.pdf
(Oklahoma State University)

Sunflowers: A Gift of Joy in the Garden
http://ceplacer.ucdavis.edu/newsletterfiles/Curious_Gardener17572.pdf
(University of California at Davis)

Gardening With Wildflowers
http://www.kansasnativeplantsociety.org/gardening.htm
(Kansas Wildflower Society)

A FEW BOOKS, ARTICLES, ETC.
ABOUT THE SUNFLOWER IN KANSAS

"Flowers Of The Sun" / by Lorraine J. Kaufman
(magazine article : Kansas wildlife & parks. Vol. 57, no. 5 (Sep./Oct. 2000), p 20-25)
ATLAS Catalog Record

Kansas Icons
Topeka, KS : KTWU/Channel 11 Television, c2005
[30 minute videorecording]
ATLAS Catalog Record

Kansas Katie: A Sunflower Tale / by Jerri Garretson
(children's book : Manhattan, Kan. : Ravenstone Press, 2000)
ATLAS Catalog Record

Kansas Sunflowers / by H.A. Stephens
(booklet : Emporia, Kansas : Emporia State University, Department of Biology, 1981)
ATLAS Catalog Record

Sunflower / by Miela Ford ; pictures by Sally Noll
(children's book : New York : Greenwillow Books, 1995)
ATLAS Catalog Record

Sunflowers
(picture book : Philadelphia : Courage Books, 2004)
ATLAS Catalog Record

Sunflowers: The Secret History ; The Unauthorized Biography of the World's Most Beloved Weed / by Joe Pappalardo
(book ; New York : Overlook Press, 2007)
ATLAS Catalog Record

"'There's No Place Like Home' : Symbols And Images of Kansas" / by James H. Nottage and Floyd R. Thomas, Jr
(magazine article : Kansas History, vol. 8, no. 3 (Autumn, 1985), p. 138-161)
ATLAS Catalog Record

This Is The Sunflower / by Lola M. Schaefer ; pictures by Donald Crews
(children's book : New York : Greenwillow Books, 2000)
ATLAS Catalog Record

To Live In Symbols / by Neil Byer, et al.
(booklet : Emporia, Kan. : Kansas State Teachers College, Dept. of English, 1957)
ATLAS Catalog Record


Article by: Bill Sowers
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