Whence Romanesco Cauliflower Makes Its Spiral Fractal Distill Fundamental Spawning Mechanisms.

The Romanesco cauliflower (pictured) depicts one of the most amazing fractals in nature. The swirling green cones that make up the heads of Romanesco cauliflower also form a fractal pattern - a pattern that repeats itself on some rocks. The gene underlying this fantastic structure has now been identified, and the fractal pattern has been replicated in the general laboratory plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, researchers said on July 9.

"Romanesco is one of the most extraordinary fractal shapes you can find in nature," said Christophe Godin, a computer scientist at the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology, based at ENS de Lyon, France. So the question is, why have the answers eluded scientists for so long?

Godin and his colleagues knew that Arabidopsis variants could make tiny structures like cauliflower. So the team manipulated the A. thaliana gene both in computer simulations and in a growing laboratory experiment. Working with the extensively studied plants helped the researchers simplify their experiments and distill fundamental spawning mechanisms.

By altering three genes, the researchers bred Romanesco-like heads in A. thaliana. Two of these genetic optimizations inhibit flower growth and cause missing shoot growth.  The widely thought shoots encouraged the researchers to explain their practices also distill major spawning devices. So instead of flowers, plants grow buds, and on these shoots, another shoot, and so on, says plant biologist Francois Party of the CNRS in Paris. "This is a chain reaction."

The researchers then modified another gene that increased the growth area at the end of each shoot and made room for the formation of conical and helical fractals. "You don't have to change your genetics much for this form to appear," says Parsi. The team's next step, he said, "is to manipulate these genes in cauliflower."