HISTs of triangulations on surfaces (Q2443408)

A spanning tree with no vertices of degree two of a graph is called a homeomorphically irreducible spanning tree (or a HIST). Answering positively a question originating with Ellingham, the authors show that for any closed surface \(F^2\) other than the sphere, there exists a positive integer \(N(F^2)\) such that every \(N(F^2)\)-representative triangulation on \(F^2\) has a HIST. Moreover they prove that every triangulation on the Möbius band or the Klein bottle has a HIST. Reviewer's remark: Some related work is discussed in [\textit{G. Chen} and \textit{S. Shan}, J. Comb. Theory, Ser. B 103, No. 4, 409--414 (2013; Zbl 1301.05068)].