Ornamental Vegies

This post is linked to Plantchaser , where he is celebrating his birthday and Blog Anniversary. He is successful and happy both in his professional life and bloglife, that he is giving raffle prizes to his constant followers. I wish he can treat me at least a plate of Brassica! hahaha!

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Source: www.en.wikipedia.org

I am very fond of eating broccoli (wonder why the famous person doesn't)! With mushroom or shrimp, onions and soy sauce, it already makes me very happy. It is also very easy and quick to prepare. Not all people eating broccoli knows it is a flower, not unlike cauliflower. The latter however, is very obviously a flower because it says so! We had a hearty laugh in the family recently because my young niece thought that cauliflower is the flower of broccoli. She even explained how it happened, in her very young mind, of course! Both broccoli and cauliflower share the same names, Brassica oleracea. To delineate identities the term variety was added to the Genus and species, however they are both variety botrytis. I wonder why the taxonomists don't delineate their names, when they really look very different. They can't even pass as fraternal twins (joke). Only the sprouting broccoli is different, it is called Brassica oleracea var italica.

Another interesting Brassica oleracea is variety acephala or the ornamental cabbage. It is also edible but mostly used as ornamental plants because of the many variation in leaf color. Many forms and hybrids are already available. The veins  are prominently displayed and leaves have shapes like elegant lace. It doesn't produce heads like the capitata group or the normal cabbage we eat as vegetables. The normal temperatures of the Philippines are not suitable for Brassica oleracea var acephala, except in some highlands like the Cordilleras and Tagaytay during colder months when temperatures get lower than 20 degrees Celsius. The following photos, I took in 2007, are produced in the highlands and brought to the lowlands for exhibit.

For further botanical classification of Brassica please refer to: http://www.ethnoleaflets.com/leaflets/broccoli.htm 

Broccoli and cauliflower photos above are from www.en.wikipedia.org