Fibonacci Fascination


I read that many flowers have Fibonacci numbers of petals. I have looked at many flowers to see if this is true. Many of the flowers I found have the same numbers of petals on all their flowers. Most of those flowers have 5 petals. 5 is a Fibonacci number. I found two kinds of flowers that have 8 petals. 8 is a Fibonacci number. Trilliums have 3 petals. I found another flower with 3 petals. 3 is a Fibonacci number. Most of the other flowers I found have either 4 or 6 petals. 4 is 2 x 2. 2 is a Fibonacci number. 6 is 3 x 2. 3 and 2 are Fibonacci numbers. I found one flower with 10 petals. 10 is 5 x 2. 5 and 2 are Fibonacci numbers. I did not find any flowers that consistently have 7, 9, 11, or 12 petals. 7, 9, 11, and 12 are not Fibonacci numbers. I did not count petals on flowers if there were more than 12. Perhaps you might want to research dandelions in the spring???

	Here is a graph of Fibonacci numbers, done by Sunale and myself. The graph is a spiral. How may spirals do you see in nature? I've seen sea shell spirals. I've seen snail shell spirals. I've seen fiddle head fern spirals.
I have made a special Fibonacci number calculator. Note: You must have JavaScript enabled in order to use my calculator. I have also discovered that the calculator does not work in Netscape. It does work in Internet Explorer. If you wish a version (with some neat graphics) that may be installed on Windows, please write to me (use the e-mail address below).

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