A constructive characterization of trees with at least k disjoint maximum matchings

Let H = F(v) ⊕ G(w) denote the graph obtained from F and G by identifying vertices v of F and w of G; H will be said to be obtained by surgery on F and G. A matching of a graph is a collection of edges, no two of which are incident with the same vertex. This paper presents a constructive characterization of the set S_k (k ≥ 2) of trees which have at least k disjoint maximum matchings. There are three types of surgery such that, for each k ≥ 2, S_k is the set of all trees obtainable from a star K_1.n (n ≥ k) by a finite sequence of the specified surgical operations. A constructive characterization is also given for trees with two disjoint maximum indepent vertex sets.