![\"five](\"http:\/\/www.dr-mikes-math-games-for-kids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/files\/2014\/12\/five-petal-flower-collage.jpg\")
<\/a>But perhaps it’s not so much that flowers tend to follow Fibonacci numbers, just that they tend to have a small number of petals. After all, out of the numbers 1 to 10, five are Fibonacci numbers.\u00a0I’m sure that if most flowers had 4 or 6 or 9 petals instead of five, we’d find some mathematical meaning to their number. People are good at spotting patterns, even when they aren’t there.<\/p>\n
To be sure if this pattern is real, we need to test some more\u00a0flowers. With more petals. Sunflowers are a good choice.\u00a0These beautiful big blooms have rings of petals that are easy to count. At least, that is, until the local\u00a0birdlife decides they want a tasty yellow-flavored snack. Once the birds are done with them,\u00a0sunflowers are less beautiful, and have fewer petals.<\/p>\n I carefully counted the petals on the sunflower on the left, and got 34. A Fibonacci number! However, the flower\u00a0on the right was larger. When I counted its petals, there were 47. That’s not a Fibonacci number, the Fibonacci number after 34 is 55. Why 47? Is the whole theory wrong?<\/p>\n Then\u00a0I remembered that 47 is the 8th Lucas number. The Lucas numbers follow the same rule as the Fibonacci numbers – each one is the sum of the\u00a0previous two – but the Lucas numbers start with 1 and 3 instead of 1 and 1. The first few are 1, 3, 4, 7 and 11, then 18 and 29 and my sunflower’s 47.<\/p>\n Now, that’s too much of a coincidence, in my opinion, to dismiss. Two sunflowers, grown from the very same packet of seeds, one grows a Fibonacci number of petals, the other a Lucas number. Two numbers, from two very closely related sequences. Other sunflowers from different seed packets also grew Fibonacci numbers of petals – except for the odd one here and there that had only 20. Unless, perhaps, they’d just lost a petal?<\/p>\n We had other flowers in the garden with many petals. Counting the petals of these flowers is, sadly, a destructive process. I was able, after much pleading, to get permission to count the petals of the Dahlia shown above – but only after it was starting to dry up. My son was less keen to let me pluck one of the Marigolds – he’d planted them, and he’s very proud of them.<\/p>\n I’m not even going to ask about the rose.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>