In this chapter the
term of an end point of a continuum is always used in
the sense of a point of (Menger-Urysohn) order , i.e.,
is an end point of
provided that
.
For dendrites this concept coincides with one of an
end point in the classical sense,
but not with the notion of an end point of an
arc-like continuum as defined e.g.
in [Bing 1951, p. 660].
Given a dendrite , we denote by
the set of all end
points of
and by
the set of all its
ramification points
(i.e., points of order at least 3). Various structural as
well as mapping characterizations of dendrites are collected
in [Charatonik et al. 1998, Theorems 1.1 and 1.2, p. 228 and 230,
respectively]. See also
[Charatonik et al. 2000].