Romanesco

Yesterday I went shopping for some groceries in Jena, and I found a sort of farmer's market in the central square. There was the most beautiful vegetable for sale there, one that I'd never seen before. The man told me it was called Romanesco, and that it tasted like cauliflower (which is about true, though maybe a bit sweeter). For those of you who have seen it before, forgive me for remarking on a mere vegetable, I know I sound like a true provincial from the uncivilized colonies, but I really had never seen something like this before.


It is a true fractal existing in nature - in all I counted five levels of self-similar repeating patterns easily visible without a microscope. Here's a terrible out-of-focus picture I took of one of the small spears broken off, which looks exactly like a smaller version of the larger vegetable.

And finally, to make up for my terrible photography, here's a better picture of the vegetable I downloaded from the Wikipedia fractals page. I have no idea why this vegetable was never featured in my textbooks when they'd discuss mathematical concepts in nature. I think it's much showier than a spiral in sunflower seeds.
And now I'm going to make it into a gratim. Mmm....