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Kale , broccoli , Brussels sprout , cabbage , cauliflower , collard greens and kohlrabi have unparalleled nutritional values , and we call back of them as distinct vegetables . Yet , they all share the same species name . Could they all really come from the same plant ?
The short solvent is yes , and humans are responsible for the differences among these veggies .
These vegetables — broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower — are all varieties grown from the plant Brassica oleracea.
" It is all one plant , Brassica oleracea , that man have choose over multiple generations to have these varying vegetables that we all love eating,“Makenzie Mabry , an evolutionary biologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History , tell Live Science .
Chris Pires , an evolutionary biologist who studies craw science at Colorado State University , calls these veggies " the dogs of the plant world . " All favored dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) are the same species , domesticate from wolves ( Canis lupus ) , and they come in different potpourri , or strain . Similarly , broccoli , cauliflower , kale and the other said vegetables were also naturalize from the same species , B. oleracea .
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These vegetables — broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower — are all varieties grown from the plant Brassica oleracea.
Of course , many crop were cultivated for specific traits too , such as heirloom tomato . But unlike those crops , which are bred for dissimilar coloring , tastes and sizes , Brassicavarieties are bred from the works ’s different physical parts .
" We tame all of the plant parts , " Pires observe . " The stem , the inflorescence [ blossom cluster ] , the folio , the underground parts . "
That tameness resulted in a wide scope of nutritionary diversity , too . As each multifariousness adapt to dissimilar environments , it raise different amounts of antioxidants and biting compounds , Alex McAlvay , an ethnobotanist at the New York Botanical Garden , told Live Science . Even the same vegetable can have unlike nutritional values depending on whether , and how , it ’s cooked . For example , " people have bred Brussels sprouts to be creamier , less bitter , more saporous , " Pires said .
Through artificial selection, the plantBrassica oleraceahas been primed to produce many types of vegetables.
And each veggie has had its bout of fame . In the U.S. , kale only became popular for its so - calledsuperfoodproperties in the retiring few tenner , and in other 2024 , The New York Times published a storyabout dinero " have a import . "
Even beyond the seven main veg produce fromB. oleracea , there are two to three dozen varieties that are specific to various region of the macrocosm because different group of masses domesticated those plants locally . In the American South , for example , collardswere brought over by European colonistsand eventually became a raw material of Southern culinary art . And the works continue to arise in modern research labs ; Broccolini , a cross between Brassica oleracea italica and Taiwanese broccoli ( also known as Chinese dinero ) , wasintroduced in 1993 .
Scientists are still deciphering how and why humans unnaturally pick out certain traits from unlike parts ofB. oleracea . Those root date back yard of years , when our antecedent cultivated different parts of the works — in some case , by accident .
" They were weeds before they were crops , " McAlvay suppose . As some societies crop the gage with less - biting leave or more cranky shoot , for example , those traits develop into the crop Fannie Merritt Farmer now grow commercially .
One ground it ’s difficult to hunt that pedigree is because the climate and environs 2,000 years ago were vastly unlike than they are today , Pires note . He and Mabry cultivate on a bailiwick in which theyattempted to trace those lineages . They find grounds thatBrassica cretica , a flowering Mediterranean works , is the closest living comparative ofB. oleracea . Despite their onward motion , the picture remains incomplete .
" How do you visualise out the origins of something where you do n’t even love what the ancestor wait like ? " Pires say .
Our current understanding of theBrassicafamily tree would collapse in an instant if another ancestral variety were divulge , for example , or if archaeologists sequenced the ancient DNA of a fossilised relation , Pires said . Our evolutionary understanding of the mintage is constantly changing .
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Another reason for the secret is the way crop develop . Once humans cultivate plants , they can by and by become feral if abandoned , Mabry said . Crops can also turn ferine if they hybridize with nearby wild varieties through cross - pollenation . Wild plants , by contrast , have never been cultivated . In this sensory faculty , B. oleraceahas become an significant enquiry mannequin for scientists ' intellect of hybridization and orotund evolutionary processes .
The coolest thing about this plant ? " Everyone grows these in their backyard , " Mabry said , noting that it ’s a go - to novice harvest for home nurseryman . " I think we have a real close connection to this flora as a society . "
