Plants don't follow a complex master plan to grow branches—they basically just flip a coin every time.
bioRxiv · March 13, 2026 · 10.64898/2026.03.12.711315
Why it matters
In the moss Physcomitrium patens, the intricate structure of its filaments isn't dictated by a complex biological map. Instead, mathematical modeling showed that each cell simply has a near-equal probability of branching or not during division, suggesting random chance drives its morphology.
From the abstract
Branching forms are ubiquitous in nature and have evolved repeatedly across scales and species. An important goal of developmental biology remains to identify similarities and differences in the regulatory mechanisms underlying branching. Here, we investigate the branching filaments that form upon spore germination in mosses, using Physcomitrium patens as a model species. To identify the macroscopic rules governing filament patterning, we developed a pipeline to acquire high-resolution 3D images