Toward a quantification of self-similarity in plants

Pascal Ferraro (1) , Christophe Godin (2, 3) , Przemylaw Prusinkiewicz (4)

1 LaBRI - Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique
2 UMR AMAP - Botanique et Modélisation de l'Architecture des Plantes et des Végétations
3 VIRTUAL PLANTS - Modeling plant morphogenesis at different scales, from genes to phenotype
4 CPSC - Department of Computer Science [Calgary]

Self-similarity of plants has attracted the attention of biologists for at least 50 years, yet its formal treatment is rare, and no measure for quantifying the degree of self-similarity currently exists. We propose a formal definition and measures of self-similarity, tailored to branching plant structures. To evaluate self-similarity, we make use of an algorithm for computing topological distances between branching systems, developed in computer science. The formalism is illustrated using theoretical branching systems, and applied to analyze self-similarity in two sample plant structures: inflorescences of Syringa vulgaris (lilac) and shoots of Oryza sativa (rice)

Mots clés: Self-similarity; fracta; branching structure; paracladial relationship; edit distance

Mots clés: structural comparison

Domaines: Autre [cs.OH]

Pascal Ferraro, Christophe Godin, Przemylaw Prusinkiewicz. Toward a quantification of self-similarity in plants. Fractals, 2005, 13, pp.91-109. ⟨10.1142/S0218348X05002805⟩. ⟨hal-00307402⟩