Spanning Forests
A spanning forest is a type of subgraph that generalises the concept of a spanning tree. However, there are two definitions in common use. One is that a spanning forest is a subgraph that consists of a spanning tree in each connected component of a graph. (Equivalently, it is a maximal cycle-free subgraph.) This definition is common in computer science and optimization. It is also the definition used when discussing minimum spanning forests, the generalization to disconnected graphs of minimum spanning trees. Another definition, common in graph theory, is that a spanning forest is any subgraph that is both a forest (contains no cycles) and spanning (includes every vertex).
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Famous quotes containing the word forests:
“It seems to me that we do not know nearly enough about ourselves; that we do not often enough wonder if our lives, or some events and times in our lives, may not be analogues or metaphors or echoes of evolvements and happenings going on in other people?—or animals?—even forests or oceans or rocks?—in this world of ours or, even, in worlds or dimensions elsewhere.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)