Of cultivated sunflowers we had several varieties, black, white, red, striped, named from the color of the seed. The varieties differed only in color; all had the same taste and smell, and were treated alike in cooking.
White sunflower seed when pounded into meal, turned dark, but I think this was caused by the parching.
Each family raised the variety they preferred. The varieties were well fixed; black seed produced black; white seed, white.
Harvesting the Seed
Although our sunflower seed was the first crop to be planted in the spring, it was the last to be harvested in the fall.
For harvesting, we reckoned two kinds of flowers, or heads.
A stalk springing from seed of one of our cultivated varieties had one, sometimes two, or even three larger heads, heavy and full, bending the top of the stalk with their weight of seed. Some of these big heads had each a seed area as much as eleven inches across; and yielded each an even double handful of seed. We called the seed from these big heads mapi´-i’ti´a from mapi´, sunflower, or sunflower seed, and i’ti´a, big.
Besides these larger heads, there were other and smaller heads on the stalk; and wild sunflowers bearing similar small heads grew in many places along the Missouri, and were sure to be found springing up in abandoned gardens. These smaller heads of the cultivated, and the heads of the wild, plants, were never more than five inches across; and these and their seed we called mapi´-na´ka, sunflower’s child or baby sunflower.
Our sunflowers were ready for harvesting when the little petals that covered the seeds fell off, exposing the ripe seeds beneath. Also, the back of the head turned yellow; earlier in the season it would be green.