NATURAL PATTERNS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
CIRCULAR: mandala-type patterns are seen in religious and cultural patterns and in architecture and art, as well as biologically (think of Sunflower centres, dandelions, cross sections of fruit and veggies like celery)
BRANCHING: botanical, biological (heart, vascular and nervous systems etc), and the branching of flowers, trees and other plants.
earth systems such as waterway branching, lightning.
The two patterns above ( branching and circular) interest me the most, but there are others:
SPIRALS, MEANDERS, CRACKING, TESSELLATIONS, WAVES, BUBBLES, STRIPES.
Further down the page are some books on this.
I probably first became interested in the patterns of Nature as a child, when I learnt how to make wax crayon rubbings over coins and leaves and so on. I liked the leaves best.
One of my favorite things was to look at an antique book which had belonged to my grandfather. It was kept in a locked, glass-windowed china cabinet, and I was only allowed to look at it on special occasions. That book was F. Edward Hulme’s Plant Forms, published in 1868 and was probably kept in the cabinet because it was sadly deteriorated, with brown spots. The glue on all the pages had dried up and they were no longer attached to the binding.
I learnt a lot about plant form from this book – for instance that the pattern of veins on the leaves seemed to mirror the way the leaves were attached to a stem (alternate or opposite). I started to collect flowers and ferns and pressed them. At that point, I was not allowed to get books from the library because there was a polio epidemic!
I was delighted to find that book in the Internet Archive . If you’d like to look at more of a lovely old book, here is a video made from an original, ( not the one I inherited, which is even more worse for wear!)
In the late 1960’s, books like the Whole Earth Catalog appeared and I became really interested in universal patterns such as the tree as The Tree of Life.
Some books on the subject are very detailed. Some go into cultural-historical discussions and even esoteric views, as well as scientific ones. If you would like a short, simple overview, try Wikipedia on Patterns in Nature
Earlier books that interested me. Now available in paperback:
Peter S. Stevens. PATTERNS IN NATURE Little Brown and Co. 1974
Gyorgy Doczi THE POWER OF LIMITS Shambala 1981
Philip Ball. PATTERNS IN NATURE Oxford Univ, Press 1999. Also in Kindle
David Wade.CRYSTAL AND DRAGON. The Cosmic Dance of Symmetry and Chaos in Nature, Art and Consciousness, Destiny Books, Vermont, 1991. pb 1993.
There are other books on the subject, similar to Wade’s, at stores like Banyen Books. in Vancouver, B.C.
Three more comprehensive books that may contain too much information for many people : Philip Ball now has at least 3 separate smaller books on the same subjects as his Patterns in Nature, but in parts, with more detail : Shape, Flow, Branches etc.