Leave on the exterior part of the plant can receive adequate light from the sun as the light is not obscured by other leave as compared to those in the lower interior shaded regions. Hence, for the plants to maximize the light falling on their leave, those on the exterior regions have reduced surface area to permit light to penetrate the interior parts. Those leaves on the lower shaded regions have a larger surface area so that the little light which penetrates through the exterior leaves surfaces are captured by the leaves at the lower shaded parts.
Weight
Moreover, the leaves from the different plant microenvironments indicated a variation in their weights. Similar to the average surface areas, the shade leaves had more weight than the sun leaves. The average weight of the sun leaves was indicated as 1. 2g while that of the shade leaves was higher by 0.3, hence showing an average weight of 1.5g. The average weights of the leaves from the two classes were thus not widely varied as it was with the average surface areas.
Despite the fact, the sun leaves and shade leaves had different mean averages of area and weight; they had one thing in common concerning the distribution of their perimeters. On the extremes side of the perimeter of 0.5cm and 2.5cm, there were very few leaves at these extremes. However, most of the leaves’ perimeter fell in the range of 60. cm and 90. cm with very few of them measuring above this and below 48. cm. Most of the sun leaves were clustered on the weight range of 1 and 1.5g. On the other hand, the shade leaves were clustered between 1.5g to 2. g, but they were widely spread from one another about their perimeters. A large proportion of the shade leaves had a maximum perimeter of about 80.cm but very few of them fell above 80. cm. The results also showed that some of the leaves had a perimeter of below 40. cm. Generally, shade leaves were clustered between 45. cm and 70. cm
