Even in nominally uniform solar wind flows, such as over the solar poles near solar minimum, the wind velocity exhibits fluctuations of order 40 km/s. We have shown previously that such variations will shear planar parallel propagating magnetic fluctuations leading to the generation of transverse wave vectors. Here we extend our previous two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to three dimensions and describe how, starting from an initial spectrum of circularly polarized Alfvén waves with radial wave vectors, such “microstreams” might produce fluctuations that could be described as “quasi-two-dimensional”. Our goal is to elucidate the origin of the “two-component” nature of the correlation function of magnetic fluctuations. © 2003 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]