Conventionally, architecture relates to buildings, embracing both art and science, and specifying both form and function. In scope, this closely matches the study of plant architecture. From an artistic perspective, we might marvel at the astonishing diversity of aesthetically pleasing plant structures, yet as scientists we know that, through natural selection, very little of form is dissociated from function. The origins of studies of plant architecture and their influences on human existence are steeped in history, but, from a 21st century perspective, the field has been transformed from a...