I hear that broccoli was invented by a person, sorta. It’s like a mule. It was not created by a Creator or by evolution. It was “invented” by people. Using cauliflower. That may be why the word for it in a variety of languages is broccoli. The fact that George H W Bush hated it may also be related.

I’ve got news about the other vegetables….

Helluva lot of science illiteracy in these comments.

Calling. Put chunk of part of redwood in pot, cook, see what you get. Eat it. Dare you.

Don't encourage them. If they can make socks out of bamboo, high fibre old growth forest muesli is a horrific possibility.

I bet the sprouting tips of the branches are pretty good.

Likely a medicinal tea

And here I thought everything was Asteraceae. Botany joke...

Is it the phylogeny that's FUBAR, or is it the plants? I would argue we're just reporting; THEY'RE the ones being little weirdos.

One of my favorite facts is phylogenetically trees aren’t a thing. Arguably neither are fish, or everything is fish, or maybe only bony fish are fish.

We're all fish, but only birds are dinosaurs. "Tree" is actually just a final form.

There are so many viable hybrids in trees that the Biological species concept is just tossed tf out. I found a stupid tri-hybrid sitka-white-black spruce on the Kenai like ten years ago and my shop dug it up and replanted it at the research station as a monument to scientific hubris

so many things are beans. it haunts me.

@badgermash.bsky.social 😆

So often, these days, my reaction is "It's now a WHAT!?" and, although there is the occasional regret, general relief that I didn't do a botany degree, which would now be next to useless. I blame the geneticists. 😉

We are all Brassica oleracea.

Liz Truss couldn't get that lucky.

Not until fall...

What even is a species anyway?