Generator

grown-against-static

Choose a divergence at random and a static lattice at this rise gives a consecutive Fibonacci pair 10.8 per cent of the time. Start coarse at a divergence nobody chose, grow the stem down to the same rise, and it is 100 per cent of 16 runs. The geometry is not generous; continuity is.
Fibonacci at a rise of 4.8e-3, asked two waysChoose a divergence at random and a static lattice at this rise gives a consecutive Fibonacci pair 10.8 per cent of the time. Start coarse at a divergence nobody chose, grow the stem down to the same rise, and it is 100 per cent of 16 runs. The geometry is not generous; continuity is.grown from a coarse start100.0%divergence chosen at random10.8%share ending on a consecutive Fibonacci pair16 grown runs, starting divergences from 67° to 299°every one of them ended on 8/1367 nodes per rung · rise 0.4 → 4.8e-3100% against 10.8%

Drawn at its defaults, in the same pattern with a rate. It takes no options at all, so every essay calling it gets this exact drawing.

Called by 7 essays

the blast radius of changing it

Where the angle comes from

The angle is an output

137.5° is not a constant of nature. It is where a rule settles — a rule that places each new element as far as it can from the ones already there, contains no reference to the golden ratio, and reaches the same answer from starting angles a hundred and sixty degrees apart.

The claims, measured

How often is it Fibonacci

The claim that plant spirals come in consecutive Fibonacci numbers is stated as a near-universal. Asked of the geometry, the answer collapses with scale — at a coarse rise 67% of divergences give Fibonacci pairs, and at a fine one 15%, with whorled and unnamed pairs taking the rest.

The claims, measured

How many plants would it take

Fourteen specimens separate the geometry's Fibonacci share from a coin weighted to a half. Four separate it from what a grown history gives. One fir cone measured at three rings settles whether its ladder is spaced as a cone's or an ogive's. The sample sizes are small, and that is the uncomfortable part.

Where the angle comes from

The rate decides the branch

Forty nodes of Lucas lattice, carried down to the same fine rise twice. Hurried, the pattern holds the Lucas ladder through three more forks at 99.5°. Given room, it abandons it at the first fork it reaches and walks to 8/13 at 137.5°. Same seed, same rise, two ladders — with a threshold between them at about ninety nodes per rung.

Where the angle comes from

Continuity from a coarse start

At a fine rise, one divergence in seven gives a Fibonacci pair. Grow a stem from a coarse start at a divergence nobody chose, down to that same rise, and sixteen runs out of sixteen end on 8/13. The expansion phase's interpretation was that continuity does the work; this is the measurement it never had.

Where the angle comes from

Two degrees of scatter

A lattice tolerates about two degrees of wander in its divergence angle, and two kinds of noise sharing no code agree on the number to within a third of a degree. It is not a constant: carried finer, the same stem survives 0.8°, and the tolerance tracks the band of angles that produce its pair at all.

Stems and cones

The sequence has a memory

Every measurement this collection has made of a stem's divergence angles throws the order away. A spread is invariant to shuffling. Put the angles back in order and there is a large correlation between one and the next — 0.54 with no noise at all — which is the rule correcting itself, and which nothing had looked at.

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