How the cauliflower got its mesmerizing fractals The cauliflower really wants to grow flowers but just ends up with more buds growing out of its buds that grew out of other buds… Closeup of romanesco cauliflower. Credit: Rum Bucolic Ape/Flickr For at least two thousand years, humans have noticed that many plants grow leaves or flowers in a spiral pattern. Some of these plants, such as the cauliflower, take it a step further, growing spirals in self-repeating patterns commonly known as fractals. The resulting patterns are fascinating and intriguing, which begs the question: why do cauliflower and other fractal-like plants grow like this? French researchers at CNRS posed this exact question and identified an underlying genetic mechanism that produces fractal geometry.