Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/501

 SUNFLOWER 481 been cut off at the dorsal and anal fins and then furnished with a short broad caudal ; there are no ventrals, no air bladder, and no abdominal sac capable of distention ; the dor- Common Sun Fish (Orthagoriscus mola). sal and anal fins are more or less united to the caudal ; the stomach is small, and immedi- ately receives the biliary canal. The common sun fish ( 0. mola, Schn.) is almost circular, and the dorsal and anal project posteriorly, with the caudal between ; on each side, near the centre, is a small pectoral, and in front of it the gill opening ; the gills are arranged in comb-like fringes ; it is also called moon fish and head fish. It grows 4 or 5 ft. in length and 3 or 4 ft. in depth, with a weight of sev- eral hundred pounds ; the flesh is tough and remarkably elastic, owing to the great amount of yellow elastic fibre, intricately interlaced, almost to the exclusion of white fibre and true muscle ; the liver is very fat, and its oil is used for lubricating purposes on board ship, and for sprains and bruises among fishermen. It is grayish above and whitish below, with a silvery lustre when alive, and phosphorescent at night. According to Mr. Putnam, in his paper read before the American association for the advancement of science in 18YO, the young differ little from the adults in shape, and do not resemble molacanthus, as Lutken and Steenstrup have said. It is sluggish in its mo- tions, and is often seen asleep at the surface of the water. In some seasons it is common in summer in Massachusetts and New York bays, and feeds partly if not principally on medusoe. There is probably no fish more infested by parasites, internally and externally. The name sun fish is also commonly given to many me- dusse (see JELLY FISH), and in this country to the bream (see BREAM). SUJiFLOWER, the common name of plants of the genus helianthus, a word of the same meaning. The genus belongs to the compo- site family, and consists of about 50 species, most of which are North American ; they are coarse annual and perennial herbs, with rough stems and foliage, and some species bear tubers; the opposite or alternate leaves have three nerves ; the solitary or corymbose heads are margined by conspicuous neutral ray flowers ; the involucre imbricated ; the persistent chaff of the receptacle embracing the four-sided akenes (popularly seeds), which bear at the top two chaffy and very deciduous scales, with sometimes two or more intermediate ones. In the common sunflower (H. annuus), from tropical America, the flat receptacle is 6 in. or more across, margined by conspicuous yellow ray flowers, while the central portion, or disk, is crowded with brownish tubular ones. The idea that the sunflower is so called because it always presents its face to the sun is erroneous ; the name is more likely to be due to the resem- blance of the flower head to the old pictorial representations of the sun as a disk surrounded by flaming rays. Few plants are so exhaustive of potash, the constituent in which most soils are deficient, as the sunflower, and its culti- vation, sometimes recommended for various uses, would soon render fertile soils unpro- ductive; for this reason it cannot become a profitable crop. It is raised in small quantities occasionally for the seeds (akenes), which make an acceptable variety in the food of poultry, and they are in repute among horsemen as a remedy for heaves, a quart being given daily with the food. Though the seeds yield about 40 per cent, of an oil useful for burning, for soaps, and other purposes, equally good oil may be obtained from plants which do not so ex- haust the soil. The abundant pith has been used by French surgeons as a moxa. A so- called double variety, in which the tubular florets of the disk are developed in the same Garden Sunflower (Helianthus multiflorus). form as those of the ray, is much more showy than the common kind. The best garden sun- flower is the many-flowered (H. multiflorus), a perennial, of doubtful nativity, growing 4 to