Blog Post #9

The evolution of Brassica Oleracea is a fascinating and amazing process. Because of selective breeding there are many types of Brassica Oleracea. The part that exhibited the most variation is the leaf, and the two types of Brassica Oleracea that are almost opposites are Siberian kale and the Purple Cabbage. The Purple Cabbage has big, long,and purplish kind of leaves. While the Siberian kale have long, rough texture, tattered edges, and greenish type of  leaves. The Siberian kale is 29 cm long, and 11 cm wide. The Purple Cabbage  is 20 cm long and 15 cm wide.Both plants have purple stems.

The Brassica Olercea plants come in many forms. Because of artificial selection and changes in their genes. Because the brassica oleracea changed genes they were more adapted, because humans started to selectively breed them. They were selectively bread to meet peoples expectations. Although humans have caused most of the brassica oleracea to be so diverse descent with modification  also  plays a role in this. If some unusual thing occurs the plants with a trait that helps it in that situation will become dominate.There is also natural variation witch selects traits for or against something and mutation are other reasons why plants are so diverse.

The stem of the plants were the most consistent because they were all about the same size about 1 cm. One of the reasons that the stem  is so consistent is because the stem is one of two main structural axes of a plant. The only difference is the color. Some are yellow green, purple, or white.

 For plant breeders to get the stem to become much different they have to find certain traits in other plants and breed them together or transfer it in some other way. This is called selective breeding. The brassica oleracea plants would never be this diverse if it was not for selective breeding.