sunflower!

We only had one sunflower come up in our garden this year (I was hoping for a couple varieties of them) but boy was it fun to dissect the one we had!  First we cut the stalk down, then chopped off the head.  It was really fun picking the seeds out (we didn't let them dry first) so we could see where the seeds were living underneath the little "pollen" flowers.  Layer by layer we looked at everything.  Inside there is a cottony layer of cellulose where the flower was "drinking" from the stem like a straw!  Right in the center it was hollow.  And we really lucked out that there was even one spot that a worm had tunneled in and made a home!!!  That was really cool to observe as well.  We are going to let the seeds dry out for a day or two, then we will give them to the birds in our birdfeeder.  Oh, and he's doing experiments on the seeds now (in and out of the shell) - did you know that sunflower seeds float? 

If you haven't grown your own sunflower before you really should.  Next year buy a packet of seeds and plant a couple.  They are really cool!