What shoots can teach about theories of plant form.

Plants generate a large variety of shoot forms with regular geometries. These forms emerge primarily from the activity of a stem cell niche at the shoot tip. Recent efforts have established a theoretical framework of form emergence at the shoot tip, which has empowered the use of modelling in conjunction with biological approaches to begin to disentangle the biochemical and physical mechanisms controlling form development at the shoot tip. Here, we discuss how these advances get us closer to identifying the construction principles of plant shoot tips. Considering the current limits of our knowledge, we propose a roadmap for developing a general theory of form development at the shoot tip. How do plants acquire their shape? In this Perspective, the authors discuss how morphogenesis and patterning occur in the Arabidopsis shoot apical meristem, and the benefits of computational modelling to understand this complex process.