Figure 3 Leaf structure can vary independently of light environment. The upper panel shows foliage of an epiphytic redwood (expanded, light-green leaves) and adjacent foliage (unexpanded, darker-green leaves in background) of the host redwood at 95 m in the same light environment. The lower panel shows the new, more expanded foliage (at branch tips) that developed next to the existing unexpanded foliage on a detached upper crown (.90 m) branch after it was rooted in wet soil and kept in high light. Both examples support the view that variation in light environment explains little of the variation in leaf structure in redwood (see text).

Published as part of George W. Koch, Stephen C. Sillett, Gregory M. Jennings & Stephen D. Davis, 2004, The limits to tree height, pp. 851-854 in Nature 428 on page 852, DOI: 10.1038/nature02417, http://zenodo.org/record/1401032