Reddit reviews Plant Physiology, Fifth Edition

It depends a lot on the plant in question... Most plants use a C3 photosynthesis pathway, leading to a lot of water loss in order to both capt CO2 and cool down the leaf temperature.

I don't really understand what you mean by properties, do you mean plant properties ? If you're talking about woody species, then xylem properties (cell wall, vessel/tracheid diameter, etc) are very important as xylem serves as support and sap flow. But surface leaf area is also very important as it influences the net biomass production and sap flow rate. For shade intolerant species I'd go for carbon allocation to the stem and heliotropism. For shade tolerant species I'd go for the leaf properties (structure, chlorophyll production).

It also depends if you're interested in plant growth per se or plant survival, plant productivity, plant competition. Is your plant in a natural environment ? In tropical ecosystem ? Boreal ?

But if you're interested in just very global informations, just go to the wikipedia page of 'Plant Development'. If you want a more in depth description, I suggest you read a book like this one https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Physiology-Fifth-Lincoln-Taiz/dp/0878938664 .