Are plants fractals?

Sunset on a cold winter’s day. Look at the branching patterns on these trees – are they fractals? A fractal is anything that has self-similarity, meaning that you can zoom in or zoom out on the object without changing it – no scale is any more important than any other scale. Every part replicates every…

The wider world of plants

What kinds of organisms do you see here? You might think that these are simply small flowering plants (angiosperms), but you’d be wrong. Most species of plants – about 250,000 out of 300,000 total – are flowering plants. But these are not! You are seeing a mix of other organisms here. The dark and light…