Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Part I Pattern recognition
- Part II Pattern generation: a key to the puzzles
- Part III Origins of phyllotactic patterns
- Part IV Complements
- Appendixes
- 1 Glossary
- 2 Answers to problems
- 3 Questions
- 4 General properties of phyllotactic lattices
- 5 The Williams–Brittain model
- 6 Interpretation of Fujita's frequency diagrams in phyllotaxis
- 7 L-systems, Perron–Frobenius theory, and the growth of filamentous organisms
- 8 The Meinhardt–Gierer theory of pre-pattern formation
- 9 Hyperbolic transformations of the cylindrical lattice
- Bibliography
- Author index
- Subject index
6 - Interpretation of Fujita's frequency diagrams in phyllotaxis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Part I Pattern recognition
- Part II Pattern generation: a key to the puzzles
- Part III Origins of phyllotactic patterns
- Part IV Complements
- Appendixes
- 1 Glossary
- 2 Answers to problems
- 3 Questions
- 4 General properties of phyllotactic lattices
- 5 The Williams–Brittain model
- 6 Interpretation of Fujita's frequency diagrams in phyllotaxis
- 7 L-systems, Perron–Frobenius theory, and the growth of filamentous organisms
- 8 The Meinhardt–Gierer theory of pre-pattern formation
- 9 Hyperbolic transformations of the cylindrical lattice
- Bibliography
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
In Section 5.6.1 we started a discussion on Fujita's diagrams. It was stated that many possible sources of errors leading to these diagrams can be identified. They are, for example, Fujita's use of contact parastichies, and the way he determined them from transverse sections and from direct observations, the presence of triple contact points, the number of species he considered, the levels at which the transverse sections were made, the way he measured the divergence angles, the relative ease with which the parastichies can be observed, and the determination of the axis of the plants (see in Section 5.6.2 the discussion on Fig. 5.2). Let us look into these statements.
The absence of distinctions between contact, conspicuous, and visible opposed parastichy pairs, and the presence of a large quantity of such pairs in the same system (see Section 2.2) weighed heavily on the subject of phyllotaxis since its very beginning (see Section 2.1). The lack of a clear understanding of them has indeed created since the 1830s a long history of confusion and obstruction, inducing serious errors in the conclusions of the investigators. These clarifying notions were introduced by Adler (1974, 1977a) after Fujita's papers were published.
The notion of contact parastichies, used by Fujita (1938, 1939) to determine which pattern was under observation, is intuitively good to some extent.
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- PhyllotaxisA Systemic Study in Plant Morphogenesis, pp. 317 - 320Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1994
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