The crown of woody plants (trees, shrubs) is the totality of branches, twigs and leaves extending from the trunk or main stems. A woody plant is a vascular plant that has a stem (or more than one stem) that is lignified to a high degree. ... The coniferous Coast Redwood, the tallest tree species on earth. ... A broom shrub in flower A shrub or bush is a horticultural rather than strictly botanical category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 6 m tall. ... A twig is a small terminal branch section that bears leaves, buds and usually the flowers and fruit of plants. ... Leaves are an Icelandic five-piece alternative rock band who came to prominence in 2002 with their debut album, Breathe, drawing comparisons to groups such as Coldplay and Doves. ... Trunk may be: Look up trunk in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In common parlance, a stem is any elongated, usually narrow, extension or supporting structure of an object. ...

Shapes of crowns are highly variable. The major types for trees are the excurrent branching habit resulting in conoid shapes and decurrent (deliquescent) branching habit, resulting in round shapes. Crowns are also characterized by their width, depth, surface area, volume, and density. Measurements of crowns are important in quantifying and qualifying plant's health, growth stage and efficiency. Decurrent is a botany term used to describe plant parts that extend downward, most often applied to leaf blades that partly wrap or have wings around the stem or petiole and extend down along the stem. ...

The upper branches of the crown constitute the canopy. The canopy is the habitat found at the uppermost level of a forest, especially rainforest. ...

The major functions of the crown are light energy assimilation via photosynthesis, energy release by respiration, and transpiration (loss of water into the atmosphere). All these functions are performed by leaves. Branches of the crown provide distribution of the leaves to perform the above functions efficiently. The leaf is the primary site of photosynthesis in plants. ... Transpiration is the evaporation of excess water from aerial parts and of plants, especially leaves but also stems, flowers and fruits. ...

See also

• Apical dominance
• Pruning
• Fruit tree forms
• Growth habit (determinate growth, indeterminate growth, semideterminate growth, flushing growth, etc.)

Many conifers show particularly strong apical dominance, strongest of all in the family Araucariaceae, showing a single erect central trunk with strongly differentiated horizontal branching. ... In microeconomics, pruning taken as a metaphor from gardening, refers to the removal of excess items from a budget. ... Fruit Tree Forms The shapes of most fruit trees can be manipulated by pruning and training in order to increase yield, or to improve their suitability for different situations and conditions. ... This inflorescence of the terrestrial orchid Spathoglottis plicata shows indeterminate growth; note that the opening of flowers and production of fruits is proceding upwards on the shoot. ...

References

• Tree crown
• Kozlowski, T.; Kramer, P.; Pallardy, S. (1991) The physiological ecology of woody plants. Academic Press