Pattern analysis in branching and axillary flowering sequences

In the architectural approach to the study of plants, a major issue is to a nalyse branching and axillary flowering patterns. Due to the structured exp ression of the branching process and the noisy character of the observed pa tterns, we propose an analysis framework which is both structural and proba bilistic. Data take the form of sequences which naturally represent the und erlying structural information of branching and axillary flowering patterns and allow the application of a large number of methods ranging from explor atory analysis to stochastic modeling. The primary aim of the proposed anal ysis methods is to reveal patterns not directly apparent in the data, and t hus to deepen our biological understanding of the underlying mechanisms tha t control the branching and the axillary flowering of plants over time and space. The proposed approach is illustrated using a set of examples corresp onding to different plant species and different biological or agronomic obj ectives., (C) 2001 Academic Press.