What can we learn from sunflowers and roses?
Plants are mysterious. The Venus flytrap, for instance, eats flies by trapping them inside their mouths. What if you can find mathematics in flowers? It sounds uncanny, but certain plants, such as sunflowers, epitomize math sequences and can be used to measure time.
Starting with zero and one, the Fibonacci sequence increases by the sum of two preceding numbers. For example, the first eleven terms of the sequence are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55; zero plus one equals one; one and one is two; two and three is five; five and eight is thirteen, and so on.
The sequence manifests in the petals of flowers as they grow from the center and push out radially. Flower petals are arranged in a spiral to maximize space and sunlight absorption. In a sunflower, 55 florets spiral in one direction, 34 in another. Sunflowers also exhibit the golden ratio, where, for example, the ratio between 55 florets and 34 florets is close to the irrational number Phi, approximately 1.615. Other flowers, such as roses, usually have 13, 21 or 34 petals after being plucked, another manifestation of the Fibonacci Sequence.
The Flower Clock is another instance of finding math in nature. Before water clocks, hourglasses and other tools, people used plants to calculate time. Also noted for his binomial nomenclature system, Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus invented the Flower Clock. By making a list of actions that flowers undergo during their growth, Linnaeus was able to measure time. For example, the blooming of flowers and the opening of petals were accurate markers of both hourly and seasonal changes.
Although flowers look unassuming, they are filled with many wonders, including the Fibonacci sequence. Flowers embody the intricacies of nature and the lessons it can teach us in math.