Dichotomy

Dichotomy, dividing into two, especially applied to certain growing - points and other structures in plants in which such division occurs without the formation of buds. Ill the axial structures of the lower plants this often arises from the division of a large apical cell; in the leaf-structures of higher plants it originates in the division of a mass of smaller cells forming an apical meristem (q.v.). The term was formerly applied to such inflorescences as the cymes of the pink tribe, in which two lateral buds form one on either side of a terminal one, which are now termed dichasia.