Flower Power Trivia

Do you have flower power? Test yourself with a few trivia questions . . .

1.    Which flower follows the sun across the sky? 

2. What makes them follow it?
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Nectar      Water      Sunshine     Shadow

And the answers are . . . 
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1. Sunflowers follow the sun across the sky.

2. Water helps them do it. 

​Did you know that as young plants, sunflowers actually follow the sun during part of their day. How? Why? Because of Heliotopism. Common sunflowers who are the same age, turn their petals in unison toward the sun. Before the flower opens or is pollinated, the young plants face the sun at dawn and follow it across the sky. At sunset they turn to the east and wait for the sun to rise again. Who knew sunflowers could tell time?!
 
 Heliotropism uses special cells at the bottom of leaves and flower buds. They’re called pulvinus. Those cells have tiny motors inside them, not the kind we have in cars, but they move the flower so it can follow the sun. Water inside the pulvinus creates turgor pressure. That means those cells get either bigger, or smaller. How do they know which way to go? That depends on the pressure, and it makes the stems bend toward the sun or away from it. Wow, who knew plants could measure air pressure too?!
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Sources:
For More Info: homeguides.sfgate.com
Which flower follows the sun’s... | Trivia Answers | QuizzClub
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                                                                                                    Part 2
                                         3.  Why do people plant sunflowers close to nuclear accident sites? 

                                                          To monitor radiation                             To suck it out
                                                           To decorate the area                            To increase crop yields
 
                                                                     4.  What are sunflowers better at cleaning? 

                                                                               Soil                                                         Water
                                  
                                                                                               And the answers are . . . ​

​3. Sunflowers suck the radiation out of the soil.
 
4. They can do it better with water. 

Sunflowers suck the radiation out, but how? They grow quickly so they’re known as hyper-accumulators. They need to gather lots of nutrients, and FAST! They’re not particular about what comes in, so they absorb minerals, both regular and radioactive ones. They pull the nutrients into their roots, stems, and leaves.  If you travel to Chernobyl or Fukushima, both nuclear disaster sites, you’ll find fields of sunflowers growing and cleaning the dirt.
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Scientists studied sunflowers first at Chernobyl in the 1990s. They were surprised by how effectively they could clean water sources. Soil is trickier because radioactive elements get more time to bond with the minerals down in the dirt.  

​ Sources:
More Info: www.askqotd.com
Why are sunflowers planted in... | Trivia Answers | QuizzClub

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Part 3

Got flower power? Test yourself with my final pair of trivia questions . . .
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5.  Which one of these plants do people eat? Hint . . . it belongs to the sunflower family.

6.  Where does this plant come from?

The Caribbean             The Mediterranean           The North Sea             The Arabian Sea
 
And the answers are . . . 

 5. The plant people eat . . . artichokes.
 
6. They’re from the Mediterranean. 
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Artichokes look like thistles, but they belong to the sunflower family. They’re also perennials. That means they live at least two years. They’re hardy so their seeds go straight into the ground. They don’t need to be planted inside first.

Artichokes come from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, northwestern Africa, and the Canary Islands. People eat their stems. They also get a liquid coagulant from it that southern Europeans use to make cheese. Coagulants change liquids into solids/semi-solids. The best part about the cheese – it’s vegetarian so it comes strictly from plants.

The artichoke we eat is classified as an invading species in the United States, Argentina, and Australia. That’s because it comes from somewhere else, and because it damages our own native plants. 
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Sources:
More Info: en.wikipedia.org
https://quizzclub.com/games/bonus/which-of-these-plants-do-people-eat/answer/822763/
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​Photo: Hellabore Argutifolius: By Daderot - Self-photographed, Public Domain,
ttps://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3760755

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