If you've ever wondered how and why cauliflowers develop their unique shape then wonder no more - as plant scientists and mathematicians have worked together to discover just how it occurs.
The findings, published in Science , revealed that cauliflowers are in fact buds that are designed to become flowers, but are never able to do so.
Instead of reaching the flowering stage, mathematical modelling combined with plant biology showed that cauliflowers develop into stems, which in turn continue trying to flower.
This chain reaction, which results in stems upon stems developing, then produces the cauliflower as we know it.
Studies showed that the brief incursion of buds into a flowering state profoundly affects their functioning and allows them, unlike normal stems, to grow without leaves and to multiply almost infinitely.
Assistant Professor Etienne Farcot, from the University of Nottingham, is one of the mathematicians behind the study.
He said: “After over a decade of collaborative work from a multidisciplinary and international team of researchers, this emergent process can finally be explained.
“Although most plants present a geometric organisation in spirals along main and secondary axes (called ‘phyllotaxis’), cauliflowers present an unusual phyllotaxis with a multitude of spirals, nested over a wide range of scales.
“How such a fractal self-similar organisation emerges from developmental mechanisms has, until now, remained elusive.
“Combining experimental analyses in Arabidopsis thaliana cauliflower-like mutant with mathematical modelling, we found that curd self-similarity arises because growing plant tissues fail to form flowers but keep the “memory” of their transient passage in a floral state.
“Understanding this genetic mutation could help plant scientists optimise growth of related plants.”
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