The Sunflower
The Helianthus Annus is classified as follows:
Common name- Sunflower, Garden flower, or common Sunflower
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Helianthus
Species: Helianthus annuus
The Sunflower is my favorite flower. One of my reasons for choosing the sunflower was its striking beauty, from its long fuzzy stem to its beautiful golden petals that resemble the rays of the sun. Another reason why I selected the sunflower is because of the way sunflowers make me feel, and their ability to brighten up any room. I also chose the Sunflower because its seeds are the main ingredient in my favorite lotion. Also I love Sunflower seeds.
The name Helianthus Annus comes from the Greek word Helios, meaning “sun” and anthos, meaning “flower,” annus was from Linnaeus, it was the only sunflower known to him that lived for a single season, hence it was called annus for “annual” (Mitchell, 08). The sunflower is native to primarily North America. The sunflower grows in prairies and dry open areas. It grows best in sunny moist areas. The sunflower is tolerant of high and low temperatures, although more tolerant to low temperatures with the optimum temperature range being 70-78 degrees Fahrenheit (Mitchell, 08).
Helianthus A. is an annual plant, that can grow to be 4.6 m tall. It has large, rough and hairy leaves. A single sunflower is actually a flower head consisting of numerous flowers. Helianthus A. can grow to be about 20-30 cm in diameter. Flower heads consist of numerous densely arranged florets (Mitchell, 08). Sterile ray florets on the outer side vary in color- they can be yellow, red or orange. The disc florets inside the circular head produce seeds. The florets inside the circular head are called disc florets, which mature into seeds (Mitchell, 08). The florets inside the sunflower's cluster are spirally arranged, which is a very efficient way of packing seeds within the flower head.
Sunflowers are quite useful. Sunflowers seeds provide oil which can be used as salad dressing or in cooking. It can also contribute to the manufacturing of margarine when hydrogenated (Mitchell, 08). Sunflowers contain nutrients such as Vitamin A and E, tannins, inulin, levulin, magnesium, selenium, B-1, B-5, phosphorous, tryptophan, copper, B-6, manganese, folate, fiber, iron and zinc, amino acids and Omega-3 Fatty Acids (Borivoje, Vasilich, Poulet, Hata 2011).
The author of my essay is Simon Balic and he is a historian and culturologist. The title of the work is, Sunflower Symposium (109-111). Balic wrote this essay thirty years after The Sunflower was written. Balic argues that he does not forgive the sufferer, although he does feel some remorse. The author supports and develops the thesis in a chronological order in order to take the reader through exactly what was seen, heard, and thought of during this time. Both Weisenthal and Balic had a liable reason to not forgive the soldier, “There are crimes whose enormity cannot be measured. Rectifying a misdeed is a matter to be settled between the perpetrator and the victim” (Wiesenthal 54). Through this, Balic was trying to speak to his audience of fellow historians.
Simon Wiesenthal’s book The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness spoke to me about the question of forgiveness and repentance. Simon Wiesenthal was a Holocaust prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He experienced many brutal and uneasy experiences that no human being should experience in their lifetime and bear to live with it. Death, suffering, and despair were common to Simon Wiesenthal that he questioned his own religious faith because he asks why would his God allow the Holocaust happen to his people to be slaughter and not do anything to save them. During Simon Wiesenthal time as a Jewish Holocaust, Simon was invited to a military hospital where a dying Nazi SS officer wanted to have a conversation. The Nazi SS officer told Simon his story of his life and confesses to Simon of his horrific war crimes. Ultimately, the SS officer wanted forgiveness for what he done to Simon’s Jewish people. Simon Wiesenthal could not respond to his request, because he did not know what to do with a war criminal that participate in mass genocide to Simon’s people. Simon Wiesenthal lives throughout his life on asking the same crucial question, “What would I have done?” (Wiesenthal 98). If the readers would be on the exact situation as Simon was
In the novel “Windflower” by Gabrielle Roy, we are introduced to Elsa Kumachuck, a young First Nations girl living in a small town characterized by its bare, inhospitable environment and a community divided between the Inuit people and the Caucasians. As the plot unveils we are given a graphic scene where our protagonist is raped by an American man. The pregnancy, which is the result of the sexual assault, produces a child who becomes the focal point of the novel as well a source of marvel for many of the inhabitants of the town. As Elsa tries to raise the child alone she finds it difficult to resist the influence of the community they are stuck in: from the boy’s ethnicity, to her own heritage but most significantly her setting. Whenever Elsa
Thank you Mr. Wiesenthal for letting me be able to read and respond to your book The Sunflower. The Sunflower has showed me how ruthless it was for Jewish people in the Holocaust. In your book Karl, an SS solider, tries to get your forgiveness for the wrong he has done to the Jewish population. For a person to ask for forgiveness means that they have realized that they have done wrong and want to repent for their mistakes. The big question in your book was “What would you do?” I would’ve done exactly what you did I wouldn’t have granted the solider my forgiveness because he didn’t deserve it.
The position to choose between forgiving one’s evil oppressor and letting him die in unrest is unlike any other. The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal explores the possibilities and limitations of forgiveness through the story of one Jew in Nazi Germany. In the book, Wiesenthal details his life in the concentration camp, and the particular circumstance in which a dying Nazi asks him for forgiveness for all the heinous acts committed against Jews while under the Nazi regime. Wiesenthal responds to this request by leaving the room without giving forgiveness. The story closes with Wiesenthal posing the question, “What would you have done?” Had I been put in the position that Wiesenthal was in, I would ultimately choose to forgive the Nazi on the basis
The animals in Yellow Wallpaper, Chrysanthemums, and Boys and Girls represents the characters and their characteristics. In Yellow Wallpaper John’s wife has postpartum depression. John is her physician but he doesn’t let her go out or do anything. She sits in a room that she hates and eventually escapes. Chrysanthemums is about a girl named Elisa and she loves to grow chrysanthemums. She meets this guy who is on the road all the time and he lives off of fixing broken pots and pans. Boys and Girls is about a family whose father takes the foxes fur and sells it for calendars. They get two horses named Mack and Flora who are going to potentially be used as horse meat. They don’t kill them instantly because at the time they had too much meat so they used them on the fields although Mack is lazy. They eventually kill both
diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than 12,500 of an estimated total of
Despite the popular belief that all flowers have an equal opportunity when it comes to attracting pollinators the competition over the basic needs of angiosperms causes the practice of deceptive pollination to be very common. Pollination is in most cases a mutualistic relationship that requires some form of benefit to both the pollinator and the flowering plant. The pollinator is attracted to a flower that looks like they can offer food or shelter. However if the flower lacks the benefit of a reward there is a low chance that the pollinator would find the flower desirable enough to pollinate. It is estimated that a large portion of angiosperms are non-rewarding, as a result most rely on the use of other pollination strategies, such as deception to attract pollinators. In deceptive pollination when a flower advertises a reward that they do not actually posses it is known as mimicry. There are two types of mimicry when it comes to deceptive pollination. The awards that the flower mimics are either nutritive or reproductive.
...ong, and shorter stalks are 20-100mm long. The flower length from the axils are one to three centimeters long. The optimum flowering time is from May through August. The fruit are pod shaped with seedlings coiled into two to three spirals with a strong net vein three to four millimeters long (montanaplant-life.org).
Dandelions, known to the botanist as Taraxacum officinale, are classified in the Composite (Compositae) family of flowering plants. The genus name, Taraxacum is derived from the Persian word for "bitter herb," (Myer, 1994). Accompanying the golden ruse of the dandelion are the daisies, aster, sunflowers, goldenrod, Joe Pye weed and many other wildflowers.
Stiles F. G. (1975) Ecology, flowering phenology, and hummingbird pollination of some Costa Rican Heliconia species. Ecology 56: 285–301.
The Drosera capensis, or more commonly known as the cape sundew is one of the most unusual and spectacular plants found in our world. This eudicodic angiosperm is a small-rosette forming, carnivorous species, meaning that it eats insects or anything else small and unlucky enough to land on it. The cape sundew is one of the most common sundews in cultivation due to its small size, durability and gratuitous amounts of seed production, making it a frequent sight in almost all parts of the world.
The opium poppy has been used as a medicinal plant for centuries all over the world. The opium poppy plant belongs to the Papaveraceae family. The scientific name of the opium poppy is Papaver somniferum L., and it is native to Turkey. The plant has lobed leaves, milky sap and four to six petaled flowers with several stamens surrounding the ovary. The two sepals drop off when the petals unfold. The ovary then develops into a short, many seeded capsule that opens in dry weather. The small seeds of the opium poppy plant are dispersed by wind. The plant has five inch purple or white flowers on plants three to sixteen feet tall. It is and annual plant which needs to be planted only once for several years of harvest. There are many varieties of poppy plants grown other then the opium poppy, mostly for seasonings, oil, birdseed and attractive flowers.
The sunflower is its own unique kind and it differs from any other flower or plant. This ties extremely well into this essay. This essay is about my story and how it is not the same as anybody else 's. Each plant serves its own unique purpose just like us as humans. They can grow to be big if they receive the right amount of sunlight, water, and other requirements to help plants grow. I compare that to life after college. We have to have more than just one aspect of college to succeed and grow. We need to get involved to show that we care and have success in the classroom. If future employers see that I not only successful in the classroom, but also got involved, I stand out. That is one way this plant has related to me thus far in my
The sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is an annual plant that has been long beloved as for its atheistic aspects and its value as a food crop. Sunflowers are native to North America and were used as a source of food by native peoples for years before European settlers came. Even though historic use of sunflowers included ornamental and ceremonial use as well as for food, the most prominent example utilization of the sunflower is for vegetable oil.