CAULIFLOWER AND BROCCLI ARE THE ONLY TWO VEGETABLES WHICH ARE FLOWERS / INFLORESCENCE......

1- Cauliflower (Brassica oleracea)

Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the family Brassicaceae including cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli and collard greens.Descended from wild cabbage, cauliflowers once closely resembled kale or collards. These days, cauliflowers form a compacted head of undeveloped white flower buds called the “curd”. A tight encasing of heavy green leaves surrounds these buds. These leaves protect the cauliflower from the sun and prevent the development of chlorophyll; no chlorophyll gives this vegetable its creamy coloring.

Thought to have originated Asian Minor, records of cauliflowers in Cyprus date back to as early as the 6th century B.C.E. A thousand years later, cauliflowers had gained popularity in Turkey and Syria. From there, the cauliflower was introduced to Spain and Italy, and then on to France and the British Isles. Cauliflower made its America debut sometime in the early 17th century.

This crisp, mild vegetable is one temperamental member of the garden patch! Very difficult to cultivate, cauliflowers grow best in relatively cool, moist climates. Extremely sensitive to unfavorable conditions, cauliflowers cannot withstand any real variance in temperature. Unlike their hearty relative kale, cauliflowers will not survive a frost. Despite this vegetable’s picky disposition, California manages to produce an ample cauliflower crop year round. Arizona produces a crop from December through April.

There are three primary types of cauliflower: Early, Autumn and Overwintering, named in reference to their harvest season. Several popular traditional commercial varieties include the Snow Crown, Romanesco, and Fremont

In recent years, you may have noticed that cauliflower is no longer just white but comes in shades of green, orange and purple. The green curds are from a cross between cauliflower and broccoli and is sometimes referred to as broccoflower. The flowering heads are less dense and the flavor is milder.

A mutant cauliflower in Canada produced a line of bright orange cauliflowers, containing 25 times the amount of Vitamin A as their white counterparts. The purple variety, called Purple Cape, are high in anthocyanins – the same potent antioxidant found in many deep blue/red fruits and vegetables including red cabbage, red grapes and berries.

2-- Broccoli. (Brassica oleracea )

Broccoli is an edible green plant in the cabbage family whose large flowerhead is eaten as a vegetable.
Broccoli is a result of careful breeding of cultivated leafy cole crops in the northern Mediterranean starting in about the 6th century BC.Since the time of the Roman Empire, broccoli has been considered a uniquely valuable food among Italians. Broccoli was brought to England from Antwerp in the mid-18th century by Peter Scheemakers.Broccoli was first introduced to the United States by Italian immigrants, but did not become widely known there until the 1920s.

The word broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means "the flowering crest of a cabbage", and is the diminutive form of brocco, meaning "small nail" or "sprout".Broccoli is often boiled or steamed but may be eaten raw.

Broccoli is classified in the Italica cultivar group of the species Brassica oleracea. Broccoli has large flower heads, usually green in color, arranged in a tree-like structure branching out from a thick, edible stalk. The mass of flower heads is surrounded by leaves. Broccoli resembles cauliflower, which is a different cultivar group of the same species.