586 LEGUMINOSÆ INDIGENOUS TO 
a few species the outer leaf of the fascicle is single, or even soli- 
tary, without the developement of any axillary fascicle, or accom- 
panied by smaller and somewhat dissimilar lateral leaves, giving the 
appearance of a simple leaf with foliaceous stipules. In others, 
again, the leaves of the fascicle are so numerous and crowded, that 
it is difficult to make out any arrangement, and no accidental de- 
viation or monstrosity has been observed to settle which of the 
above explanations is the true one. For where the supporting 
callosity is developed in the form of a thorn (as in A. aculeata, 
where it is as long as the leaves), it does not assist in the inquiry, 
as in that case the central outer-leaf is inside the thorn at its base, 
and the two lateral ones on each side. In the floral leaves the 
three are often united into one broad, several-nerved bract, but 
that might be the case on the supposition of the three being a. 
leaf and two stipules, or three folioles, for itis far more frequently 
the case in Zeguminose, that the bracts are formed by stipules, 
than by the main leaves. Although, therefore, the probabilities 
are that the callosity is the abortive petiole, and the one or three 
leaves are, in fact, folioles, yet as there is nothing to prove that 
it is so, I have preferred the designating them as leaves in my 
diagnoses, to making use of the somewhat more complicated 
phraseology consequent on calling them folioles, as is done by 
some modern writers. 
The inflorescence is that of the tribe of Genistea, a terminal 
raceme; but in Aspalathus it is often contracted into a head, or 
reduced to a single flower, and from the peculiar abortion of the 
lateral flowermg branches in some species, the flowers or racemes 
appear to be, and have been described as, axillary. And this would 
be correct if the reduced flowering branch bore no leaves, and the 
inflorescence proceeded immediately from the axil of the one or 
three leaves, but I have, on the contrary, always seen it spring 
from the centre of a fascicle. To avoid the repetition of an ex- 
planatory circumlocution, I have always called the flower lateral 
where it proceeds from the centre of a fascicle, without any deve- 
lopement of the axis, and terminal, where the callosity bearing the 
leaves and flower is more or less elongated into a real branch. 
