Cauliflower and Chaos, Fractals in Every Floret

Scientists take a crack at recreating the hypnotic fractal spirals of the Romanesco cauliflower.

Monks once hoped to turn lead into gold through alchemy. But consider the cauliflower instead. It takes just two genes to transform the ordinary stems, stalks and flowers of the weedy, tasteless species Brassica oleracea into a formation as marvelous as this fractal, cloudlike vegetable. This is the true alchemy, says Christophe Godin, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology in Lyon, France. Dr. Godin studies plant architecture by virtually modeling the development of the forms of different species in three dimensions. He wondered what genetic modification lurked behind cauliflower’s nested spirals and the logarithmic chartreuse fractals of Romanesco, a cauliflower cultivar that could almost be mistaken for a crystal.