The Rooted Maximum Leaf Outbranching problem consists in finding a spanning directed tree rooted at some prescribed vertex of a digraph with the maximum number of leaves. Its parameterized version asks if there exists such a tree with at least $k$ leaves. We use the notion of $s-t$ numbering to exhibit combinatorial bounds on the existence of spanning directed trees with many leaves. These combinatorial bounds allow us to produce a constant factor approximation algorithm for finding directed trees with many leaves, whereas the best known approximation algorithm has a $sqrt{OPT}$-factor. We also show that Rooted Maximum Leaf Outbranching admits a quadratic kernel, improving over the cubic kernel given by Fernau et al.
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