What is the secret of the amazing shape of the “most beautiful vegetable”?
An international team of scientists has revealed the secret of the amazing shape of Romanesco broccoli – its roses are arranged this way because they are buds that have not bloomed, DPA reported.
Such a repetitive shape is called a fractal. Fractals are structures in which the individual parts resemble the whole. In Romanesco broccoli, the roses and pieces of them look like the whole head.
The buds should develop into flowers, but this does not happen. Instead, stems with color qualities are formed, but the sequence returns to the starting point before it is formed. This is a disorder of the genes for flowering. Cauliflower stalks form new buds at a steady pace, and the process of Romanesco is accelerating and accelerating. Due to this acceleration (acceleration) roses in the shape of a pyramid are formed.
The study was led by Christophe Godin of the French National Institute of Informatics and Automation. The results were published in the journal Science.
