Eli5: Why do some plants flower briefly before growing vegetables? Do some flowers have vegetables we don’t eat?

Question

Eli5: Why do some plants flower briefly before growing vegetables? Do some flowers have vegetables we don’t eat?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Which vegetables do you have in mind? Vegetables can be split into quite a few different categories, and some are the direct result of flowering (fruit-vegetables, eg tomatoes), while others take being fertilised as their cue to make a vegetable, and yet others I’d imagine just happen to flower and vegetabler based on the same environmental cues.

Also, you can’t really have vegetables we don’t eat, because the definition of “vegetable” usually includes eating them, such as “Plant matter that humans eat”. If we don’t eat it, it ain’t a vegetable. Which means that if suddenly everyone on Earth woke up tomorrow and adamantly refused to eat potatoes ever again, potatoes would stop being vegetables.