When you purchase through nexus on our site , we may clear an affiliate delegation . Here ’s how it do work .
Kale , broccoli , Brussels sprouts , cabbage , Brassica oleracea botrytis , collard common and Brassica oleracea gongylodes have unparalleled nutritionary values , and we consider of them as distinct vegetables . Yet , they all share the same species name . Could they all really come from the same plant ?
The short answer 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 humans have take 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 , told Live Science .
Chris Pires , an evolutionary life scientist who studies crop science at Colorado State University , calls these veggie " the hound of the plant world . " All pet dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) are the same species , tame from Hugo Wolf ( Canis lupus ) , and they come in different varieties , or strain . Similarly , broccoli , cauliflower , kale and the other said vegetables were also domesticize from the same species , B. oleracea .
Related : Where did watermelon vine come from ?
These vegetables — broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower — are all varieties grown from the plant Brassica oleracea.
Of course , many crops were cultivated for specific traits too , such as heirloom tomatoes . But unlike those crops , which are bred for different colors , appreciation and sizes , Brassicavarieties are bred from the plant ’s different physical parts .
" We domesticated all of the plant life parts , " Pires take down . " The stem turn , the inflorescence [ blossom cluster ] , the leaf , the underground parts . "
That domestication result in a broad range of nutritionary diversity , too . As each kind adapted to different surroundings , it produce dissimilar amounts of antioxidant and acid compounds , Alex McAlvay , an ethnobotanist at the New York Botanical Garden , told Live Science . Even the same vegetable can have different nutritionary values bet on whether , and how , it ’s wangle . For example , " multitude have bred Brussels sprout to be creamy , less bitter , more flavorful , " 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 past few decades , and in early 2024 , The New York Times publish a storyabout clams " have a instant . "
Even beyond the seven primary vegetable produced fromB. oleracea , there are two to three dozen varieties that are specific to various regions of the world because different groups of people domesticated those flora locally . In the American South , for case , collardswere brought over by European colonistsand eventually became a staple of Southern cuisine . And the plant keep on to grow in modern research labs ; Broccolini , a cross between broccoli and Taiwanese broccoli ( also known as Chinese kale ) , wasintroduced in 1993 .
scientist are still deciphering how and why humans by artificial means selected sure trait from different portion ofB. oleracea . Those origins see back thousands of years , when our ancestors school different office of the plant — in some cases , by accident .
" They were weeds before they were crops , " McAlvay say . As some societies cultivated the mourning band with less - bitter leave or more tippy shoots , for example , those traits evolve into the crop farmers now grow commercially .
One reasonableness it ’s hard to retrace that filiation is because the mood and environs 2,000 long time ago were immensely unlike than they are today , Pires note . He and Mabry do work on a field of study in which theyattempted to line those lineages . They found grounds thatBrassica cretica , a flower Mediterranean industrial plant , is the closest living relative ofB. oleracea . Despite their progression , the video remains incomplete .
" How do you forecast out the stemma of something where you do n’t even know what the root looks like ? " Pires said .
Our current savvy of theBrassicafamily tree would break down in an instant if another ancestral diversity were discovered , for case , or if archaeologists sequenced the ancient DNA of a fossilized relative , Pires say . Our evolutionary agreement of the species is forever interchange .
— Why are bananas berries but strawberries are n’t ?
— Can carrot give you night visual sense ?
— Why do some yield and veggie direct electricity ?
Another reason for the whodunit is the way crops evolve . Once humans cultivate plant life , they can later become feral if abandon , Mabry say . craw can also turn feral if they hybridize with nearby wild varieties through thwartwise - pollenation . Wild works , by dividing line , have never been cultivated . In this sense , B. oleraceahas become an important enquiry model for scientist ' understanding of crossbreeding and expectant evolutionary processes .
The nerveless thing about this plant ? " Everyone grows these in their backyard , " Mabry allege , noting that it ’s a go - to initiate crop for house gardeners . " I think we have a real close connection to this plant as a society . "
