ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the ecological implications and the trade-offs involved in the various and varying architectural designs of extant plants. Plant performance can be understood as the crucial link between its phenotype and its ecological success and the form becomes ecologically and evolutionary relevant when it affects performance. The structural basis of light capture by plant crowns is explored from the leaf level to the community level with special attention to leaf angle, phyllotaxis, branching patterns, and crown shape. Branching complexity ranges from plants with a single axis to large trees with many orders of branching in three-dimensional space. Plant form can be very complex due to the combination of regular and irregular pattern formation processes. Architectural models are a convenient starting point for interpreting plant form, but there is a series of variations and exceptions to each program of development that complicates classification and suggests the search of additional descriptions of crown shapes.
