1     buds, packed solar panels
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The leaf bud is a packed solar panel, fresh from the factory. In most cases, the leaf is fully formed weeks to many months before the bud expands, and expansion occurs largely by expanding existing cells (they were made from a branching off of a special portion of the bud meristem which is on a yet younger end of the branch), rather than making new cells. Here, a new bud begins bud break in the spring on an English beech tree (Fagus sylvatica).
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