Blooming Broccoli

Sitting on a table in my living room is a paper plate that holds a stalk of broccoli wrapped in a bright red bow. It was joke gift to my daughter for her 18th birthday. It still sits there weeks after the party ended the decorations put away and the final leftovers eaten or thrown away.

I have left it there on the round accent table, where it sits under the leaves of a house plant on the tier above, waiting patiently for my now "grown" daughter to take responsibility for her gifts. But there it still sits even after all the thank you notes have been sent. It's not as if she had any intention of eating the broccoli. It was the impetus for a good hearty laugh amongst her and a few friends, and perhaps a good story later. But now it sits alone as the deep green slowly fades.

My only experience with broccoli that has remained in my home beyond its prime has been in the refrigerator. Too often the once yummy vegetable has sat in the back of the vegetable drawer inside a plastic bag that slowly fills with condensation. Then very light brown spots begin to appear and I imagine that the texture of the stalk develops a slimy texture. I don't bother to reach inside the plastic bag to test my slime theory. When it is time to clear out inedible foods, I take a hold of the corner of the bag and toss it into the trash.

Outside of its normal storage habitat, a stalk of broccoli reacts very differently as it begins its descent from healthy food to compost ready material. It first begins to fade something like tanned skin fading as the sunlight becomes scarce in winter. The fade brings out the yellow. There is no withdrawal of anything much beyond the color; nothing seems to be shriveling the way I would expect. There is a little shrinkage but nothing dramatic. It is aging gracefully. There is no foul smell. In fact I only notice its slow decline when I cross the room on my way into the kitchen, not because the air is fouled by the slow rot I would expect.

The real surprise has been the small and vital yellow flowers that are blooming from within the head. The head of the broccoli is often referred to as the flower, but it would appear that there are more traditional flowers trapped within the topmost portion of the stalk. The chlorophyll seems to have withdrawn inside itself to serve as food for these new flowers, with their tiny paper-fine petals and their white centers.

The red ribbon tied to the stalk has taken on the look of an accent for a bouquet of flowers. The silly gift has transformed itself into something more; it has reinvented itself, almost as if it is attempting to match its surroundings, to become a member of the various home accents.

I'm sure that an internet search or flip through the pages of my plant book would offer a simple and logical explanation for this phenomenon. I don't bother, however. I am enjoying my place as an observer in this happening. I don't feel a need to understand the death of the broccoli. I'm willing to accept that the process is predictable and there is no need to arm myself with knowledge; I can simply allow it to continue undisturbed and enjoy the tiny gifts that it shares before it exhausts it resources.