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 ...

Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. Hickory trees have a leaf with less than nine leaflets and an alternate leaf ...

The spiral pattern of an Aloe polyphylla plant at the University of California Botanical Garden. Stan Shebs via Wikicommons under CC BY-SA 3.0 To the untrained eye, plants may appear to grow rather ...

Steve Nix is a member of the Society of American Foresters and a former forest resources analyst for the state of Alabama. In palmately compound leaves, the leaflets form and radiate from a single ...

Leaf arrangement with one leaf per node is called alternate phyllotaxis whereas arrangement with two or more leaves per node is called whorled phyllotaxis. Common alternate types are distichous ...

Some trees, like the black walnut here, are easily identifiable by their bark. While most people think about leaves when they think about identifying trees, there are many other unique characteristics ...

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 ...