Motivational images have become an integral part of the Internet. However, they should at least be correct.

Take a beautiful picture of a tree, a sunset, a couple or even sunflowers, write an irrelevant piece of wisdom on it, something like “Don’t dream your life, live your dreams,” and you have a typical motivational picture.
But the information in this picture should make every botanist itch:

Sunflowers are said to share energy
Screenshot: mimikama.org

Translated into German, the text reads:

“Sunflowers follow the sun...
But did you know
when it's cloudy and gray, they look at each other and share their ENERGY.
Imagine if PEOPLE did that too.”

Do sunflowers always follow the sun?

That’s a little too general, as “ Flora Queen ” explains. Strictly speaking, only the growing sunflowers follow their internal cycle, which is based on sunlight and the movement of the sun. The brown “face” of the plant contains 1,000 to 2,000 tiny flowers, which require the greatest possible amount of sunlight for the plant to grow, which is why it always follows the sun.

Adult sunflowers, on the other hand, only face east.
There are two good reasons for this: they no longer need as much sunlight as they are fully grown, the rising sun then warms the flowers much more quickly, and according to a UC Davis study of sunflowers, warm flowers are preferred by bees. This gives them the advantage of being pollinated sooner at the beginning of the day than other plants.

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And do sunflowers share their energy?

However, this assumption seems to come from a more esoteric place, because sunflowers absorb solar energy through their many flowers, which is then needed in the stem for growth and supply, but they do not radiate any energy through the flowers, which are used by other sunflowers could.
If it were that easy, all solar systems would be designed completely differently: in bad weather, simply align the panels with each other = constant energy. But both sunflowers and solar systems are designed to absorb as much energy as possible, not release it.

Conclusion

As pretty as the saying may be, it is wrong in a botanical sense.


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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )