Helly property for connected subgraphs of a tree
ID: helly-property-for-connected-subgraphs-of-a-tree
A finite family of nonempty connected subgraphs of a tree with pairwise nonempty intersections has a common vertex. For a finite ambient tree, prove this by deleting a leaf of a tree . If one member is , pairwise intersection proves the result immediately. Otherwise remove from every member containing it. Each such member remains nonempty and connected and contains the unique neighbour of . Hence every pair still intersects, even if its original intersection consisted only of , and mathematical induction applies. This is the Helly property specialized to trees.
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