Sunflowers have long been associated with the sun because they follow its movement in the sky.

In fact, sunflowers were important to the religious practices of the Aztecs, a Mesoamerican culture that revered the sun and used a solar calendar.

A North American Crop

Sunflower, Helianthus annuus, is a crop that has many uses. The seeds of a sunflower can be used to make oil or provide a tasty snack for you or for the birds that visit your bird feeder; the leaves can be fed to cattle; and the fibrous stalk can be used to make paper.

Although sunflowers are now grown in many places worldwide, the sunflower is a New World crop - it originated in the Americas.

A new study of domesticated sunflowers has determined that sunflowers are one of the few crops first domesticated in North America. A team led by an Indiana University doctoral graduate Benjamin Blackman has found that H. annuus was first domesticated in the Mississippi River Valley, probably in the area of present-day Arkansas.

Results May Lay A Controversy To Rest

There has been some disagreement as to the place where sunflower domestication first took place. It had been previously argued that sunflower domestication occurred in two places independently – eastern North America and Mexico.

However, Blackman's team discovered that current sunflower populations in both the United States and Mexico descend from a lineage of eastern U.S. sunflowers.

This discovery helps to support the theory that the eastern U.S. was a center of crop domestication independent from the larger centers of domestication in South America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Read More:

• It's official! Team led by IU biologists confirms sunflower domesticated in U.S., not Mexico (IU News Room)
• Sunflower domestication alleles support single domestication center in eastern North America (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)