An international team of researchers has discovered the secret of the spectacular growth of the Romanesco broccoli.
The plant forms because buds fail to become flowers.
Instead, they develop into stems, which in turn try unsuccessfully to form flowers, as the team writes in the journal "Science".
The fascinating, repetitive shape as in the Romanesco broccoli is also called a fractal.
A fractal is a structure in which individual parts resemble the whole.
In Romanesco broccoli, the shape of the roses and pieces of them is similar to that of all vegetables.
The buds are designed to produce flowers, but never achieve this goal. The stems that form instead have plants for flowers, but the same sequence starts from the beginning. Overall, it is a disruption in the gene network for flower formation, writes Christophe Godin's team from the National Research Institute for Computer Science and Automation (Inria) in France. While the stems of cauliflower produce new buds at about a steady rate, the process of romanesco broccoli is progressing faster and faster. The pyramid-like florets would then arise from this acceleration.