Phyllotaxis
the spirals are counted, not admired
Concept

Nodes per rung — where it appears

2 essays name this object, across one field. What follows is each of them, and the objects they name alongside it.
1/2 at the bottom, 5/8 at the top167 nodes · rise 0.2 → 0.004542 nodes per rung

A pattern with a rate

Every lattice on this site is a static object indexed by a parameter, and a plant is not. Put the rise on a clock, place each node where the repulsion from the ones below it is least, and the object that comes out has a history — which is the first thing here that could disagree with the ladder.

emergence · rising placement noisedegrees off the minimum00.250.50.7511.251.52field noisefraction of the barrier00.00250.0050.00750.010.01250.0150.02kept its branchchanged branchanother pairno latticeseeded 40 nodes of Lucas lattice · 10 runs per amplitude1 escape in 160 runs

Noise is not a slow rate

A stem seeded on the Lucas branch keeps it below ninety nodes per rung and abandons it above — which invites the objection that a real apex's fluctuations would knock it off regardless. Measured across a hundred and sixty runs of two independent kinds of noise, one escapes, at the amplitude where the pattern is already coming apart.

emergence · noise amplitude

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

BranchNoiseThe placement ruleRateRiseDivergence angleEnsembleFibonacciHistoryLadderMetastabilityRepulsion

All concepts