Count a
Turing Sunflower
Use this counting guide to collect your information and then enter online at www.turingsunflowers.com.
Please refer to the 'Measure and Count - when to count' section of the website to be sure your
sunflower is ready to count.
You will need
A tape measure
to take the
various
dimensions
A marker pen to
mark the spirals
or tweezers to pick
out a line of seeds
A camera or
camera phone
to photograph
the seed head
You may
need a ladder
and an adult
to help
Full Name:
Scissors to
cut off the
head and an
adult to help
Height of sunflower (cm):
(from the centre of the head to the soil)
Email address:
Width of seed head (cm):
(across the middle of the head)
Name of your sunflower:
Seed name (cultivar) see packet:
Height
Postcode where planted:
No. of petals (count before they fall off):
Width
Number of bracts:
Tick box below if any
leaves, bracts or petals
were missing:
Bonus Leaf data
Number of leaves:
leaves
The bracts are the green
triangular structures on the
back of the sunflower heads.
Count all of them, including
the tiny ones
bracts
petals
Length of biggest leaf (cm):
Width of biggest leaf (cm):
These leaves
spiral left
Choose a leaf that has leaves
above and below it - is the next
leaf up from that leaf pointing
off to the left or the right?
Leaf spiral direction:
How to count the spirals
After you have measured and recorded the height of your
sunflowers and the spiral patterns are showing clearly in the
seed head:
1. Use scissors to cut off the seed head about 5 cm down from the
top of the stem (get an adult to help with a ladder if needed).
2. Have a look at the picture below to help you identify the spiral
patters that bend in two directions:
anti-clockwise spirals
clockwise spirals
3. Use a camera to take a good picture with the spiral patterns
clearly in focus. You will need to upload this later for us to
check your spiral count.
4. Either print out the picture to mark on the spiral patterns with
a pen or use tweezers to pick out a line of seeds from every
tenth spiral (see our online video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A02ccEK7Hjw
to show you how to and upload your photo for our experts to
check). We have done both in our diagram below.
5. Count the spirals in both directions - did you get Fibonacci
numbers (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, , 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144....)
Add them together to get a total, is this a Fibonacci
number too?
Finally and most
important!
Once you have collected all the data,
including the photo of the seed head,
transfer to the website
www.turingsunflowers.com/measure
Don’t worry if you can’t tell us the
direction of the spirals. The numbers
are more important.
Number of clockwise spirals:
Number of anti-clockwise spirals:
Total Number of spirals:
6. If you didn't get a Fibonacci number, don't worry it's still
important for us to know what you got so record your answers
on the sheet and upload your photo for our experts to check.
Mark the first spiral with a
pen, then do the same
with every tenth spiral
1
1
89
10
55
80
10
50
70
20
20
60
40
30
50
30
40
This sunflower has
55 anti-clockwise spirals
and 89 clockwise spirals