The number of petals on a flower is often a number from the Fibonacci series. Although this might seem strange, remember that 13 is a Fibonacci number!

This sunflower was planted in April and the picture was taken in July. The thing to notice is how the tiny seed heads make two sets of spiral patterns going in opposite directions.

These numbers appear in the Fibonacci series!

• We found a website which has loads interesting stuff about Fibonacci and nature - it even shows you how to spot the spirals in a cauliflower!
• If you can prove you own the copyright, do please get in touch.
• They appear everywhere in Nature, from the leaf arrangement in plants, to the pattern of the florets of a flower, the bracts of a pinecone, or the scales of a pineapple.

History Fibonacci was known in his time and is still recognized today as the greatest European mathematician of the middle ages.

His full name was Leonardo of Pisa, or Leonardo Pisano in Italian since he was born in Pisa. So Fibonacci grew up with a North African education under the Moors and later travelled extensively around the Mediterranean coast.

Fibonacci and Nature Plants do not know about this sequence - they just grow in the most efficient ways. Some coniferous trees show these numbers in the bumps on their trunks.

In the case of leaf arrangement, or phyllotaxis, some of the cases may be related to maximizing the space for each leaf, or the average amount of light falling on each one.