[mfragin]

When I was teaching math and comp sci, I used broccoli in an example to explain self-similarity: imagine you're playing with your Barbies or GI Joes and you want to make their dinner plates look like they have real food on them. You can break off a much smaller piece of broccoli and it will look "to scale" on the plate. Try that with a banana!

That was to explain the concept of self-similarity, something we CAN see in fractals.

Note: for anyone wanting an easy way to experiment with L-systems, there's a built-in feature in Inkscape that is pretty fun to use. It's under "Extensions/Render/L-System"

[dekhn]

I don't perceive broccoli as self-similar at any scale (maybe I'm missing something), but romanesco, for sure. I see at least 3 levels of self-similarity.

[ska]

> maybe I'm missing something

I think you are. At the very least, you can clearly break a piece off a floret to resemble a scaled version of the whole head.