Why Don’t Trees Lean South

Christophe Eloy (Centre Marseille) Cambridge Fluids Network - fluids-related seminars 6 February 2025 1:00pm MR14, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge Despite sunlight predominantly coming from the south in the northern hemisphere and the tendency of plants to grow toward light, trees maintain nearly symmetrical crowns. Why don’t they lean southward? In this talk, I will address this question and propose a scale-free model that combines phototropism and gravitropism to explain the shapes of tree crowns.