Systematic variations in divergence angle.

Practical methods for quantitative analysis of radial and angular coordinates of leafy organs of vascular plants are presented and applied to published phyllotactic patterns of various real systems from young leaves on a shoot tip to florets on a flower head. The constancy of divergence angle is borne out with accuracy of less than a degree. It is shown that apparent fluctuations in divergence angle are in large part systematic variations caused by the invalid assumption of a fixed center and/or by secondary deformations, while random fluctuations are of minor importance.