Voronoi Pattern Discovered in Chinese Money Plant Leaves

Researchers have identified a Voronoi diagram pattern in the vein structure of Chinese money plant leaves, a discovery published in Nature Communications on May 12. The pattern, used in city planning and found elsewhere in nature, may explain reticulate veins in plants. Study co-author Elijah Blum first noticed the pattern while caring for his sister's plants as a high school intern at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He brought it to supervisor Saket Navlakha, a computer scientist at the lab. The team, including Przemysław Prusinkiewicz from the University of Calgary, used computer simulations to show that auxin waves from hydathodes create boundaries forming major veins. This is the first demonstration of Voronoi diagrams in plant venation where both edges and centers are visible and functional. The discovery could aid in designing technologies like solar panels and electronic circuits, as noted by Lawren Sack of UCLA, who was not involved in the study.