Sunflower
about 3,000 B.C. Sunflower seeds were ground or pounded into flour, cracked and eaten as snacks, mixed with
other vegetables, or even squeezed for oil which was used in making bread. Nonfood uses included purple
dye, medical uses, and using the dried stalk as a building material. The plant and the seeds were widely used in
ceremonies.
In Peru, this flower was much revered by the Aztecs. In the Aztec temples of the Sun, the priestesses were
crowned with sunflowers and carried them in their hands. The early Spanish conquerors found numerous pure
gold representations of the sunflower in these temples.
Spanish explorers took the exotic sunflower plant to Europe in the 1500's, where it was widely used as an
ornamental plant. By 1716, an English patent had been granted for squeezing oil from sunflower seeds but the
sunflower was never really viewed as a food plant until it reached Russia. By 1830, sunflower oil was being
annaabi.ee 
