system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
When a plant branches, does this affect the rate of growth of the branches?

I was thinking about this looking at my pothos plants. 2 of the 3 have started branching off. Will the combined growth of the branches equal the growth of the unbranched plant or are all the nodes capable of the same growth, branched or unbranched?
gpt
Each of the branches have a small packet of cells that are capable of roughly the same amount of division. There is a difference between the packet of cells on the central stalk and the ones on the branches, so those will function a little differently.

This means that each branch has the same ability to grow, as each of these little packets of cells functions somewhat independently. It is not like there is some central storehouse of cells that the plant allocates to different parts of its growth. It will be limited by nutrients and resources (sunshine and Nitrogen/Phosphorus/Potassium/etc), so sometimes plants will signal different growth rates to different parts of the plant.