Many birds and fishes have common names starting with Square-tailed. Example: Squaretail mullet, Squaretail kites. But the shape is more like trapeziums.
Japanese farmers tried to squeeze watermelons into a cube-forming structure. Square watermelons exist under cultivation.
Centipede plant have rather rectangular segments if you disregard the tip of the stem.
Cissus quadrangularis, its name seems to suggest some quadrangular traits. This plant may not meet expectations.
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I can relate (I’m an aspie myself). I’m just glad that it was a curiosity fixation this time rather than an upset fixation.
Neurodiversity and iNaturalist! - General - iNaturalist Community Forum
In Hawaii, I came upon a species of Psychotria that fascinated me because its infructescence exhibited what looked to me like perfect right angles; that is, each of the four side branches came off the main stem at 90 degrees from it and from each other. Rubiaceae (with notable exceptions) tend to have flower parts in 4’s (and in some cases, leaves in 4’s), so I figured that the panicle branches were continuing the pattern. This is why Rubiaceae is one of my favorite plant families.
But I can see how he might have connected plant and animal parts with minerals, since cells and indeed all biological molecules are made of chemical elements just as minerals are. Check out the first illustration in this Wikipedia article about sponge spicules, which are mineral crystals used as animal parts.
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The connection between driven curiosity, science and Aspergers seems to be becoming stronger and clearer.
Some even argue that science itself evolved directly from such minds. Newton, Darwin, Einstein — all exhibited many of the signs of Autism.
What I have read about Einstein is that he often claimed he was less a genius as he was stubborn at finding answers.
So many of his beautifully simple thought experiments drove him to seek answers and for that he would often go to extremes. It was that stubborn drive that drove him to learn the math needed to ask others for answers and he was famous for being so forward about asking.
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Here is a related thing that might be enjoyed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_NZ1ql8B8Y
Plant cells are sometimes squarish or rectanglish. Sometimes they’re prisms. Or scutoids.
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Sometimes it’s pyramidal.
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This is about as “perfect” a square as I can think of in the plant world, at least for macroscopic parts:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/144293049
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139456128
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/109933056
Quadrangular tessellation shows up in various plants, for instance:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/100916993
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/60501977
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/133056065
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Not a real helpful answer but wanted to say that my son has autism and this sounds a whole lot like him. Most of the time he teaches me things now that he is older, but there’s a lot of stuff I now know solely because he asked me about something I had no knowledge on, pushing me to quickly find answers!
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I never knew this existed! Thank you, very cool!
Einstein wasn’t the genius he’s claimed to be, at least the big part of his work he took from an existing work of another scientist. I’d say if he was like you describe him, maybe it helped him to compilate all the existing info together and get the formula.
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The “standing on the shoulders of giants” thing? Yep, that’s science!
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The photos don’t make them very convincingly square stemmed. Maybe they began as multi-stemmed plants and the stems coalesced?
I’m glad my answer was satisfactory to help with your question, I was just posting a cool plant!
Since the question has been answered, and perhaps this is relevant since lotteryd brought up this plant
I’ll use this to post one of my favorite screenshots I’ve taken from iNat. Look closely 
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My thoughts went to Fibonacci sequence where the sequence follows the rule that each number is equal to the sum of the preceding two numbers - notice each building subgroup is a square. This pattern is repeated in nature (simple squares are too easy).
This is also sometimes expressed as the golden ratio https://clevelanddesign.com/insights/the-nature-of-design-the-fibonacci-sequence-and-the-golden-ratio/
Or think of fern fronds
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The 90 degree mint structural base is visually (and interactively!) displayed very well in Physostegia virginiana, aka the Obedient Plant.
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Absolutely. And I would add, by not falling into the potholes mapped out by the great hordes of brave, and brilliant experimenters who were proven wrong by their work.
To me, this is what ennobles Science in the realm of human achievements. It depends on acknowledging the realization of constant failures.
Now it may not celebrate this as much as it should, (loser vs winner is a tough way to gather research funding) but it undeniably depends on the courage to accept evidence as workable facts in order to proceed.
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Goodness there is a lot here.
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re: the Hair Ice screenshot @natemarchessault posted, I did not see it at first but my son wised to it instantly. I asked him what he thought his pup looked like, expecting something based in nature. “Dignified.” Well, then.
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Thank you to @jasonhernandez74 and @anon83178471 for finding commonality and expressing it regarding Asperger. It’s such a small part of my son, it’s a diagnosis but it tells so little about him, you know? Nonetheless I use it almost as a shorthand to explain to others quickly why some things may take longer/look different/be more laborious than others might expect. I appreciate you understanding that the code also has a good side, that he comes with gifts and strengths from his difference as well. And @broacher !
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The Golden Ratio is huge in our house. It is a whole thing. Too long to explain here but I was raised on it. I love that it came up here. Thank you @bobmcd
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Everyone who offered up examples, thank you so much. I am grateful. He is still looking at them. His brain “pings” and then he bops away and he comes back and continues the conversation hours later like we have all been on pause, hahaha. I could not love him more.
Thank you for being a community with me today.
Be well,
Lucy (and G)
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Not sure if this will help.Combretum quadrangulare; Cissus quadrangularis.
Look at “Quadrangularis” in Wikipedia
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I’ll agree the photos in the gallery on Atlas Obscura left a little something to be desired. There’s more information online, though. It would have been nice if they had provided a link to the University of Florida study that the article mentioned, too.
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OH! I completely forgot the square trees in Panama! Those were especially favorite @screedius. He immediately quipped, “Forget about the Bermuda Triangle, why is nobody talking about the Panama Cuadrangles?!?” Then he demanded we pack our bags. (Being a complete killjoy, I said no.)
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At one point I was thinking, ‘Should they introduce this kid to the book ‘Synergetics’ (Buckminster Fuller)?’
Hmmn. That’s a tough call. I remember being a young teen completely entranced by his writings.
“Design science,” in the most general terms, maintains that faithful observation of Universe is the basis of successful invention. The idea therefore is not to invent some strange new gadget, hoping there will be a market for it, but rather to tap into the exquisite workings of nature…”
I recently discovered an old dust-covered copy of Synergetics on an old shelf and was then completely shocked at the gap of my comprehension now as compared to then when I tried to read some of it. But it still made me excited, or at least brought back the memory of that feeling.
To immerse yourself into that geometric ocean of possibilities…
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