![Brassica oleracea [Botrytis Group] 'Romanesco'](http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/potd/brassica_romanesco.jpg)
Today's image was photographed last September in a Venice market by Kimberly T of California (I'm not sure which Venice – California or Italy?). Many thanks, Kimberly!
A top-notch piece of writing on this plant exists online, so rather than trying to retell the story, I'm going to highly recommend you visit this page: Fractal Food: Self-Similarity on the Supermarket Shelf by John Walker, founder of Autodesk, Inc. and co-author of the well-known AutoCAD software. To give a hint of what you'll find on the article, John's divided his (released into the public domain) essay into a few parts: The Unclassifiable Romanesco, A Computational Universe?, Stalking the Vegetable with a Camera and Fixing Fractal Food – perfect Botany Photo of the Day fare.
Conservation resource link: “The Case of the Orchid Smugglers”, an article from Environment Canada's EnviroZine, tells the story of an illegal importation of protected orchids into Canada.
Amazing, beautiful photo. The link for the fractal food article is broken: it should be http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/
Delicious to eat too, not just to look at.
The link above doesn't work, but this one does.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/
Thanks Daniel... Venice, Italy on our 25th wedding anniversary, 2006
Cheers -
Thanks Justine and Diane, I've fixed the link (and Justine, I've added you to the preapproved commenters list - for other readers, that's the reason for the double response, since Diane posted before I was able to approve Justine's post).
Inspiring!! I have baby broccoli Romanesco growing in my garden right now, from seeds imported from Italy. I hope at least one of mine grows to look like your photo.
Yeah, I once saw it in Food Co-op in Mount Vernon, WA and was so amazed. I stir-fried it with some regular broccoli and ham, which tasted really good, and of course, looked beautiful!
Amazing! How or where can I buy some Brassica oleracea [Botrytis Group] 'Romanesco' seeds ?
Search on Google or another search engine for:
site:com Romanesco seeds
(I noticed a few vendors)
Would you be willing to make this one available at 1024x768? In paging back through the old entries, I find I still really love it.
I'll see what I can do, Courtney - might take a few days, though.
Here's the photo at 1024x768: Brassica oleracea [Botrytis Group] 'Romanesco'
Thank you!
this is the craziest thing ive seen, i once saw it on the veggie market early morning, proof that God likes his psychedelics as well as us.
This cultivar is highly modified by humans. If you are specifically referring to the spiral pattern, that's often seen in nature and explainable by mathematics.
Thank you Dave for introducing me with new plant. It is so fascinating.