Solving Non-Homogeneous Nested Recursions Using Trees

The solutions to certain nested recursions, such as Conolly’s C(n) = C(n?C(n?1)) + C(n?1?C(n?2)), with initial conditions C(1) = 1, C(2) = 2, have a well-established combinatorial interpretation in terms of counting leaves in an infinite binary tree. This tree-based interpretation, and its generalization to a similar k-term nested recursion, only apply to homogeneous recursions and only solve each recursion for one set of initial conditions determined by the tree. In this paper, we extend the tree-based interpretation to solve a non-homogeneous version of the k-term recursion that includes a constant term. To do so we introduce a tree-grafting methodology that inserts copies of a finite tree into the infinite k-ary tree associated with the solution of the corresponding homogeneous k-term recursion. This technique also solves the given non-homogeneous recursion with various sets of initial conditions.