Geometric Probability and the Areas of Leaves

Why Do Some Plants Have Larger leaves than other plants? Why do the overall shapes of different kinds of leaves vary? How does one determine the area of a peculiarly shaped leaf? Plant biologists are extremely interested in these questions. A biologist might wonder, for instance, which of two plant species carries out the most photosynthesis. Since the amount of light a plant can absorb for use in photosynthesis is related to its area, the biologist might investigate the photosynthetic capacity of two species by comparing the amount of chlorophyll in leaf pieces of the same area.