[pigbucket]

Exactly. In fact, the guy didn't discover that trees branch according to the Fibonacci sequence (which was long known) but rather began his investigation by asking, Why the Fibonacci sequence? Then he hypothesized that it optimized the gathering of sunlight for photosynthesis. Then he tested the hypothesis with a new pv array.

[taliesinb]

http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/page-410#previous has something to say about how the golden ratio can pop out without being encoded directly in plant phylotaxis.