Summary
“Corner's rules” for plant form relate the degree of branching to branch diameter, and branch diameter to leaf or inflorescence size. We report the first interspecific test of these rules for inflorescence size and branch diameter. We derived a simple corollary of Corner's rules; since leaf size and inflorescence size are both correlated to branch thickness, they may be correlated to each other. This corollary holds for Leucadendron and Protea (Proteaceae), and in certain other taxa in the Asteraceae, Bruniaceae and Pinaceae which also have leaves and reproductive structures on the same shoot. For such taxa this implies that selection for aspects of floral display (inflorescence size, pollination type) may also be expressed at the level of leaf size and vice versa. This has implications for many aspects of botany and also points to the importance of the co-ordinating role of plant architecture for aspects of plant form.
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Midgley, J., Bond, W. Leaf size and inflorescence size may be allometrically related traits. Oecologia 78, 427–429 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00379120
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00379120