Sunflower Flower Meaning and Legend Stories
The sunflower is native to South America. The domesticated variety was brought from North America to Europe by the Spanish in 1510, initially for ornamental use. At the end of the 19th century, it was introduced back to North America from Russia. It is cultivated in all parts of our country. Its seeds are called sunflower seeds, often roasted and eaten as a snack, and can also be pressed into sunflower seed oil for consumption. Now let us take a look at the flower meaning and legends of the sunflower!
The Flower Meaning of the Sunflower
Silent love, love that is never spoken aloud. The flower meaning of the sunflower is faith, radiance, pride, loyalty and adoration. Its symbolic meaning is silent love, representing the courage to pursue the happiness you want. Although the sunflower's bearing is not as romantic as the rose, nor as pure as the lily, it is sunny and bright, loving openly and honestly, loving without ever letting go, and it has a unique charm of its own. What it blooms is not only love, but also a passion for dreams and for life.
The Names of the Sunflower
The sunflower is also known as zhaoyanghua (flower facing the sun), named because its flower often faces the sun. In English it is called sunflower, but not because of this trait; rather, it is because its yellow blooms resemble the sun, although sunflower also carries some sense of “turning toward the sun”. The word sunflower was borrowed and translated from the Latin flossolis in the 16th to 17th centuries. The French, Italian and Spanish names for the sunflower, tournesol, girasol and girasol, like the Chinese name, are also based on the trait of “turning toward the sun”. The U.S. state of Kansas is nicknamed the Sunflower State because of its abundant sunflowers. The national flower of Peru is the sunflower. The sunflower also has a very beautiful name——wangrilian (lotus that gazes at the sun).
The Legend of the Sunflower
1. Legend one: Clytie was an ocean goddess and once the lover of the sun god Helios, but later Helios fell in love with the Persian princess Leucothoe. Furious, Clytie reported the relationship between Leucothoe and Helios to the Persian king Orchamus. Orchamus ordered his unchaste daughter to be buried alive. When Helios learned of this, he completely broke off all contact with Clytie. The devoted Clytie went for days without food or drink, gazing at Helios as he drove his sun chariot up in the east and down in the west, growing more haggard by the day, and in the end she turned into a sun-facing flower (the sunflower).
2. Legend two: Clytie was a water nymph. One day in the woods she met the sun god Apollo, who was out hunting, and she was deeply captivated by this handsome god and fell madly in love with him. But Apollo left without even glancing at her. Clytie eagerly hoped that one day Apollo would speak to her, but she never met him again. So she could only watch the sky every day, watching Apollo drive his golden, resplendent sun chariot across the heavens. She fixed her gaze on Apollo's course until he set. Day after day, she sat there blankly, her hair in disarray, her face worn and pale. At sunrise, she would look toward the sun. Later, the gods took pity on her and turned her into a large golden-yellow sunflower. Her face became the flower disc, forever facing the sun, following him every day ---- Apollo, telling him of her never-changing love and adoration. Therefore, the flower meaning of the sunflower is——silent love.
3. Legend three: In ancient times there was a farmer's daughter named Minggu. She was honest and simple, and she was pretty, yet her stepmother, the “female tyrant”, saw her as a thorn in her side and subjected her to every kind of humiliation and abuse. Once, over a trivial matter, she talked back to her stepmother with one sentence, which enraged the stepmother, who whipped her with a leather strap, but missed and struck her own biological daughter, who had come to intervene. The stepmother was both furious and hateful, and at night, while Minggu was sound asleep, she gouged out her eyes. Unable to bear the pain, Minggu broke through the door and fled, and died not long after. After her death, a vivid yellow flower bloomed on her grave, facing the sunlight all day long; it was the sunflower. It expresses Minggu's yearning for light and her loathing of darkness. This legend inspires people to hate violence and darkness and to pursue light. And so the sunflower has multiplied to this day.