STRUCTURAL PATTERNS IN VASCULAR PLANTS: A REVIEW

Abstract

The last few decades have seen the development of diverse schools of interpretation of the dynamic growth of plants,
namely shoot system analysis, growth form analysis, plant architecture, clonal plant theory and inflorescence typology.
This has given rise to a plethora of terminology with diverse degrees of precision and detail. In this review we present
these different approaches and discuss the relationships among them, with special emphasis on the study of the branching
system of shoots.