GENERAL REMARKS 5 



Their botanical characters are as follows : Leaves alter- 

 nate, persistent or caducous, nearly always furnished with 

 stipules, sometimes foliaceous, sometimes spiny, occasionally 

 reduced to simple glands ; these leaves are only rarely simple, 

 being usually pinnate, that is to say, composed of leaflets 

 arranged in pairs along a common axis, with or without a 

 terminal leaflet; the pinnate leaf may be often simply 

 trifoliate or even reduced to a single leaflet. In certain 

 genera they are doubly or trebly pinnate, as if the leaflets 

 themselves had split up into secondary leaflets. The flowers 

 are almost universally hermaphrodite, but they sometimes 

 become unisexual through atrophy (the locust tree, for 

 instance). 



The corolla is polypetalous and the stamens usually ten 

 in number; several groups, however, form an exception under 

 this heading through the monopetalous condition of the 

 corolla and the indefinite number of stamens. The ovary, 

 invariably free, develops into a legume or pod. 



The Papilionacese constitute the majority of the family 

 of the Leguminosas. Their leaves are nearly always com- 

 pound, often trifoliate, sometimes reduced to the terminal 

 leaflet, and then apparently simple. iVIore rarely all the 

 leaflets disappear, and their place is taken by a foliaceous 

 dilatation of the petiole, which, in thii case, goes by the 

 name of a phyllode. It can even happen that the petiole as 

 well as the lamina may be lacking, and the leaves may be 

 replaced by foliaceous prolongations of the stalk, which is 

 then said to be winged. In a certain number of genera the 

 distal leaflets, reduced to their median nervure, are trans- 

 formed into tendrils, as in the common or sweet pea. 



In the Cassalpineas, the leaves are pinnate with or without 

 a terminal leaflet, sometimes bi- or tri-pinnate, rarely perfectly 

 simple. 



In the Mimosea? the leaves are, in the majority of cases, 

 bi- or tri-pinnate. In a small number of species thev are 

 sensitive ; that is to say, capable of performing apparently 



