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IOP Publishing, New Journal of Physics, 8(14), p. 085014, 2012

DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/14/8/085014

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Petal shapes of sympetalous flowers: the interplay between growth, geometry and elasticity

Journal article published in 2012 by Martine Ben Amar, Martin Michael Müller, Miguel Trejo
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

The growth of a thin elastic sheet imposes constraints on its geometry such as its Gaussian curvature KG. In this paper, we construct the shapes of sympetalous bell-shaped flowers with a constant Gaussian curvature. Minimizing the bending energies of both the petal and the veins, we are able to predict quantitatively the global shape of these flowers. We discuss two toy problems where the Gaussian curvature is either negative or positive. In the former case, the axisymmetric pseudosphere turns out to mimic the correct shape before edge curling; in the latter case, singularities of the mathematical surface coincide with strong veins. Using a variational minimization of the elastic energy, we find that the optimal number for the veins is either four, five or six, a number that is deceptively close to the statistics on real flowers in nature.