Steve Gisselbrecht on Nostr: Biologically it's very cool because when a flower successfully forms, it releases a ...

Biologically it's very cool because when a flower successfully forms, it releases a chemical signal that says "I got this, no need to flower." You can see the limits of diffusion in the plant by how far away other flowers manage to form.

A gene necessary for sending or receiving (I don't actually know that level of detail) a version of that signal broke in the ancestor of broccoli and cauliflower, and that's why they form those delicious dense clusters of immature flowers!