Fractal Pattern in Romanesco Cauliflower Mystery Finally Discovered By Replicating It in a Common Lab Plant

A Romanesco cauliflower has a stunningly fractal pattern that makes people wonder how it got them. Taking a close look at them will reveal that the fractal pattern is also composed of miniature versions of it.

In mathematic, fractals are properties of abstract geometrical objects with a defining property of self-similarity. Scientists have long searched for the answer as to why Romanesco cauliflower has this pattern, but it was only now that modern scientists have finally discovered its mystery.

The team of scientists published their study, titled "Cauliflower fractal forms arise from perturbations of floral gene networks" in Science.

What Are Fractals?

According to ARS Technica, fractal geometry is the mathematical offspring of chaos theory, and a fractal is what is left with the wave of that chaotic activity. The fractal pattern means that a single geometric pattern repeats thousands of times at a phenomenon known as self-similarity. Due to that, they are often compared to the famous Russian nesting dolls.

Fractal patterns were once only believed to exist in mathematical equations, but not long ago, scientists found them on the patterned shapes of nature, like rivers and trees, and up to the Romanesco cauliflower.

Scientists observed that the fractal pattern of the Romanesco cauliflower does not extend to infinitely smaller sizes. Its branched tips make up the logarithmic spiral, while the number of spirals on its tip is a Fibonacci number that is related to the golden ratio.

The Fibonacci number is closely associated with 13th-century mathematician Leonardo Pisano, whose nickname was filius Bonacci (son of Bonacci). In his Book of Calculation, Fibonacci described the numerical sequence 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... and on into infinity.

He said that dividing each number in the sequence to the one that follows ultimately results in 1.618, an irrational number known as phi or the golden ratio, which is best displayed in the golden logarithmic spiral.

ALSO READ: Children By Age 3 Prefers Fractal Patterns of Nature

Romanesco Cauliflower's Fractal Pattern

Researchers in the study were able to identify the genes responsible for the swirling green cones that make up the Romanesco cauliflower, Science News reported. Using these genes, they were able to replicate the fractal pattern in a common lab plant called Arabidopsis thaliana.

Computer scientist Christophe Godin of the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology said that the romanesco has the most conspicuous fractal pattern in all fractals in nature.

The team manipulated the genes of A. thaliana by altering three genes to grow a Romanesco-like tip on the plant. They said that two of these genetic tweaks hampered flower growth and triggered a runaway shoot growth where another shoot also grew, and so on to create a chain reaction.

After doing some alterations on the other gene, the fractal pattern increased at the growing area of each shoot. The success of their study inspired them to manipulate these genes in the cauliflower to see what will happen.