A Japanese plant species with a peculiar leaf pattern recently revealed unexpected insight into how almost all plants control their leaf arrangement. Leaves can be enjoyed for their shade, autumn ...

Pick up a leaf and it is hard not to notice the pattern made by the veins. For years, biologists, mathematicians and even poets and philosophers have tried to decipher the rules and regulations behind ...

Scientists have uncovered how the interplay between cell shape and mechanical stress influences the orientation of stomata ...

The arrangement of leaves into distinctive spirals, that are common in nature today, were not common in the most ancient land plants that first populated the earth’s surface, new research has ...

Next time you go outside, take a minute to look at your local leaf arrangements. You’ll probably notice a few different patterns. In basil plants, each leaf is about 90 degrees — a quarter-turn — from ...

Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. Leaf shapes play an important role in tree identification, providing key ...

Subtle changes in genetics can have major effects on how leaves grow into a wide variety of shapes. John Innes Centre Around the globe, plants have evolved to use their leaves for many purposes: broad ...

Leaves can be enjoyed for their shade, autumn colors, or taste, and the arrangement of leaves on a plant is a practical way to identify a species. However, the details of how plants control their leaf ...