Review: Formal description of plant morphogenesis (J Exp Bot) ($)

In recent years, a number of tools have been developed to describe and model plant morphogenesis, and these approaches have greatly informed our understanding of the molecular processes that underpin the control of growth. This excellent review by Pałubicki et al. is “an attempt to bring together a large number of computational modeling concepts and make them accessible to the analytical as well as empirical student of plant morphogenesis,” and it works. The authors point out that growth is the result of signals that specify changes over time, and that describing growth depends on having tools to represent both shape and information flow. They summarize (with pictures) different methods for describing plant geometry and signaling, and present the strength and limitations of each approach. I found this review particularly helpful in my efforts to understand the ideas and terms used in this developing field. (Summary by Mary Williams) J. Exp. Bot. 10.1093/jxb/erz210