{
  "id": 6772834,
  "title": "Quantitative Morphology of Stump Sprouts Reveals a Common Growth Axis and a Reproducible Basal Longitudinal Cavity in an Ornamental Cherry",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/11/quantitative-morphology-of-stump-sprouts-reveals-a-common-growth-axis",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-09-11T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.06.749736v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "An ornamental cherry's stump sprouts may arise from pre-existing or adventitious buds, but the resulting sprout phenotypes remain uncertain. Researchers studied a single cherry stump and measured four traits across 35 visible sprouts: fresh weight, basal diameter, shoot length, and node number. These traits exhibited strong correlations and were unified by a common growth axis.\n\nUnsupervised analysis identified morphological components but could not attribute them to preventitious or adventitious origins. During further examination, researchers discovered a basal longitudinal cavity in 23 of 31 sectioned sprouts (74%). This cavity persisted in 16 of 22 smaller, subsequent sprouts (73%) after the initial sprout population was removed. Interestingly, cavity presence seemed unrelated to the overall shoot size, while cavity length increased with the size of cavity-positive sprouts.\n\nThis quantitative morphological study did not differentiate between developmental origins, but basal anatomy revealed a reproducible feature potentially indicating developmental history. To determine if the basal longitudinal cavity is associated with sprout origin, direct anatomical and ontogenetic analyses are necessary.",
  "summary": "Stump sprouts may originate from pre-existing preventitious buds or adventitious buds, but whether these developmental origins produce distinguishable whole-shoot phenotypes remains unclear. We examined all visible sprouts on a single stump of an ornamental cherry (Prunus sp.) and measured four preselected traits: fresh weight, basal diameter, shoot length, and node number. The initial census…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}