Simulated growth of plants

A universally accepted system for describing changes in plant morphology at the cellular or modular level has yet to be devised.

[1] The most widely implemented tree-generating algorithms are described in the papers "Creation and Rendering of Realistic Trees", and Real-Time Tree Rendering The realistic modeling of plant growth is of high value to biology, but also for computer games.

A biologist, Aristid Lindenmayer (1925–1989) worked with yeast and filamentous fungi and studied the growth patterns of various types of algae, such as the blue/green bacteria Anabaena catenula.

Originally the L-systems were devised to provide a formal description of the development of such simple multicellular organisms, and to illustrate the neighbourhood relationships between plant cells.

Later on, this system was extended to describe higher plants and complex branching structures.