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This, however, is unfounded; since it is precisely by the disposition of the leaves, and the absence of stipules, that the cuspa differs totally from the trees of the rubiaceous family. Walker on the Virtues of the Cornus and the Cinchona compared. The taste, at once bitter and astringent, and the yellow colour of the bark led to the discovery of the febrifugal virtue of the cuspa.
The smaller outer scales have no corresponding leaf, and apparently are modified stipules of the leaves of the preceding year, but the larger ones have a leaf to each pair of scales. The outer and inner leaves are small, the middle ones larger. Comparing the branch, it will be seen that these leaves make the largest growth of internode.
"When a leaf has everything that belongs to it it has a little stalk of its own that is called a petiole; and at the foot of the petiole it has two tiny leaflets called stipules, and it has what we usually speak of as 'the leaf' which is really the blade."
R. PSEUD-ACACIA. Common Locust, Bastard Acacia, or False Acacia. North America, 1640. A noble-growing and handsome tree, with smooth shoots, and stipules that become transformed into sharp, stiff spines. The flowers are in long racemes, pure-white or slightly tinged with pink, and with a faint pleasing odour.
The stipules, so large and leaf-like, look like two leaves, with a stem between, bearing other opposite leaves, and terminating in a tendril, while in the upper part it could not be told by a beginner which was the continuation of the main stem. For these reasons I left this out in the questions on the Pea, but it should be taken up in the class. How are we to tell what constitutes a single leaf?
Even in wild plants, as in Erodium, Calluna, Brunella and others, a botanist may recognize the rare white-flowered variety by the pure green color of the leaves, at times when it is not in flower. Some sorts of peas bear colored flowers and a red mark on the stipules of their leaves.
The scales, being stipules, leave a line on each side of the leaf-scar, and these are separated by the growth of the internodes. In the Beech, the scales are also stipules; but, whereas in the Magnolia there are only one or two abortive leaves, in the Beech there are eight or nine pairs of stipules without any leaves at all.
The plant which bears the strawberry, whether the wild or garden species, is an herb with three-partite leaves, notched at the edge with a pair of largo membraneous stipules at their base.
It is not composed of definite rings, but of leaf-scars with long ridges running from each side of them, showing the scales to be modified stipules. The leaf-scars have become somewhat separated by the growth of the internodes. In the Beech, there are eight, or more, pairs of scales with no leaves, so that the internodes do not develop, and a ring is left on the branch.
Even in a young state the Constantinople Hazel is readily distinguished from the common English species, by the softer and more angular leaves, and by the whitish bark which comes off in long strips. The stipules, too, form an unerring guide to its identity, they being long, linear, and recurved. COTONEASTER BACILLARIS. Nepaul, 1841.
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