Romanesco broccoli (also known as Roman cauliflower, Broccolo Romanesco, Romanesque cauliflower, Romanesco or broccoflower) is an edible flower bud of the species ''

Brassica oleracea ''Brassica oleracea'' is a plant species from family Brassicaceae that includes many common cultivars used as vegetables, such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan. It ...

''. It is chartreuse in color, and has a form naturally approximating a

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as ill ...

. When compared to a traditional

cauliflower Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species ''Brassica oleracea'' in the genus '' Brassica'', which is in the Brassicaceae (or mustard) family. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed. Typically, only the head is eaten – t ...

, it has a firmer texture and delicate, nutty flavor.

Description

Vitoria - Huertas de Olarizu - Romanescu BT 01

Romanesco superficially resembles a cauliflower, but it is chartreuse in color, with the form of a natural

. Nutritionally, romanesco is rich in

vitamin C Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) ...

vitamin K Vitamin K refers to structurally similar, fat-soluble vitamers found in foods and marketed as dietary supplements. The human body requires vitamin K for post-synthesis modification of certain proteins that are required for blood coagulation ...

dietary fiber Dietary fiber (in British English fibre) or roughage is the portion of plant-derived food that cannot be completely broken down by human digestive enzymes. Dietary fibers are diverse in chemical composition, and can be grouped generally by t ...

, and

carotenoids Carotenoids (), also called tetraterpenoids, are yellow, orange, and red organic pigments that are produced by plants and algae, as well as several bacteria, and fungi. Carotenoids give the characteristic color to pumpkins, carrots, parsnips, co ...

Fractal structure

The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are forme ...

(the bud) is

self-similar __NOTOC__ In mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself (i.e., the whole has the same shape as one or more of the parts). Many objects in the real world, such as coastlines, are statistically se ...

in character, with the branched

meristem The meristem is a type of tissue found in plants. It consists of undifferentiated cells (meristematic cells) capable of cell division. Cells in the meristem can develop into all the other tissues and organs that occur in plants. These cells conti ...

s making up a

logarithmic spiral A logarithmic spiral, equiangular spiral, or growth spiral is a self-similar spiral curve that often appears in nature. The first to describe a logarithmic spiral was Albrecht Dürer (1525) who called it an "eternal line" ("ewige Linie"). More ...

, giving a form approximating a natural fractal; each bud is composed of a series of smaller buds, all arranged in yet another logarithmic spiral. This self-similar pattern continues at smaller levels. The pattern is only an approximate fractal since the pattern eventually terminates when the feature size becomes sufficiently small. The number of spirals on the head of Romanesco broccoli is a

Fibonacci number In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from ...

. The causes of its differences in appearance from the normal

and

broccoli Broccoli (''Brassica oleracea'' var. ''italica'') is an edible green plant in the cabbage family (family Brassicaceae, genus ''Brassica'') whose large flowering head, stalk and small associated leaves are eaten as a vegetable. Broccoli is cla ...

have been modeled as an extension of the preinfloresence stage of bud growth. A 2021 paper has ascribed this phenomenon to perturbations of floral

gene network A gene (or genetic) regulatory network (GRN) is a collection of molecular regulators that interact with each other and with other substances in the cell to govern the gene expression levels of mRNA and proteins which, in turn, determine the fun ...

s that causes the development of

s into flowers to fail, but instead to repeat itself in a self-similar way.

References

External links

* * *
Fractal Food: Self-Similarity on the Supermarket Shelf
(John Walker, March 2005)

(Aleksandar Rodić, 2009) {{DEFAULTSORT:Romanesco Broccoli Brassica oleracea Fractals Inflorescence vegetables de:Blumenkohl#Formen und Typen

Description

Fractal structure

See also

References

External links