Do plants always have just one apical meristem at any given time? If I see multiple buds at a single shoot tip (multiple "apical buds"?), what am I looking at? Is it:
multiple ("codominant") apical meristems, or
the buds compete for dominance until one of them ends up being the apical meristem...
Would love some insight: We're always taught that you can tell a leaf by the axillary bud where the petiole connects to the stem. But what if the axillary bud has developed into a stem/branch? Would it be correct to say that leaves often lack axillary buds at their junction with the stem (maybe...