Annals of Botany 77: 515-528, 1996
© 1996 Annals of Botany Company
Phyllotactic Patterns: A Biophysical Mechanism for their Origin
Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, U.S.A. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, U.S.A. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, U.S.A.
August 22, 1995 ; November 28, 1995
The patterns seen in plant shoots and flowers, ‘phyllotaxis’, originate in an annular region. They are typically propagated inward from this ring-like area. We show here that an initial undulating periodic pattern (a ‘whorl’ of hump-like organs) can arise in a flat unstructured annulus. The pattern arises not from pre-localized pushes from below, but rather as a spontaneous physical response of the expanding surface to lateral constraint. Physical properties of a uniform formative layer (tunica) and a uniform substratum (corpus) provide the wavelength of the undulation and hence the number of organs. Establishment of the parameters for this buckling, as well as the follow-through of organ development, is biological. We propose, however, that at the moment of periodic pattern initiation the plant tissue simply manifests the spontaneous but complex properties of a two-layered inanimate sheet.
Phyllotaxis; tunica; corpus; patterning; shoot apex; morphogenesis; biophysics; buckling
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