Preliminary Course
Botany. Architectural Analysis
Plant organization
Reiteration
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During its development, a plant becomes bigger.
This increase in size of the plant body is often possible by a duplication of the existing architecture.
This phenomenon, first described on big tropical forest trees, was called reiteration by Oldeman (1974).
Tree development by the reiteration process.
Two steps of the development of reiteration on mature trees (C. Edelin, CNRS)
Reiteration allows trees to optimize space occupancy according to available energy, so called immediate reiteration (see further)
Bibliography
Oldeman R.A.A. 1974. L'architecture de la forêt guyanaise. Mémoire no.73. Paris: O.R.S.T.O.M.
Definition