> I would like to understand why numbers looks like leaves and not some other fractal like snowflakes for example (the inverse question, why biological leaves have this specific self-similar structure may yield more fruit).
Snowflakes are dendrite formations highly influenced by how nucleation happens, the graph layout choices highly impact what you will see;
Von Neumann Ordinals are possibly better approached as hierarchical branching processes, and being deterministic, Tokunaga self-similarity is one fairly elegant path to follow in the deterministic case such as this. (IMHO)
Snowflakes are dendrite formations highly influenced by how nucleation happens, the graph layout choices highly impact what you will see;
Von Neumann Ordinals are possibly better approached as hierarchical branching processes, and being deterministic, Tokunaga self-similarity is one fairly elegant path to follow in the deterministic case such as this. (IMHO)