The fractal plant

By | 2009-07-24

The fractal leaves

I would really know which plant is this one. Small, with a tubular trunk, and with surprising fractal leaves.

I considered it a weed, and was going to remove it from my celery pot. Until I realized such beautiful leaves evolution. In the picture each leaf generation is displayed. In each “floor” of the trunk you find 2 new leaves with evolved form. Moreover it seems that in the last generation the fractal pattern blow up, losing the simple shape and creating some complex one.

Nature, I can’t beat you!

It reminds me the L-systems shapes created in Inkscape. Actually there is a lot of real L-system generation applied to plants. For example, the work of the “Biological Modeling and Visualization research group” at the University of Calgary.