174 GENERAL BOTANY 



the better protected for being on very short shoots, 

 just above and very close to each spine. 



PITHECOLOBIUM DULCE, Benth. 



The Korukapuli. 



This is a very well-known shrub, being frequently 

 grown in hedges. It is rather thorny, and the 

 thorns are in pairs, with a slight round swelling 

 between them. On the younger branches there is 

 between the two thorns of a pair, one (or some- 

 times more than one), stalk which ends in a small 

 point, and has two branches, each of which again 

 ends in a small point, and bears two blades (leaf- 

 lets). That these last are leaflets and not leaves 

 is shown by the fact that there are no buds in 

 their axils. There 'are, we should notice, small 

 glands (not buds) on the main stalk just where it 

 has the two branches, and also at the base of each 

 leaflet. 



Now, if there are leaflets the whole must be a 

 leaf, and there being no buds where the main stalk 

 bears the two branches, these latter, with each their 

 pair of leaflets, are two pinnae (not leaves), and the 

 main stalk is the rachis of a pinnately bicompound 

 leaf, which has only two pinnae, each with only two 

 leaflets. 



The thorns at the base of this leaf must then be 

 modified stipules. 



When there is more than one of these reduced com- 

 pound leaves, between and behind the thorns, the 

 others are the leaves of the shoot which is axillary 

 to the main leaf, and which sometimes does not in 



