Stipules axillary

Stipules.—Stipules are lateral leafy or membranous outgrowths from the base of the petiole at its junction with the stem. They may be divided into two groups, viz. lateral and axillary. The lateral group includes four types, namely, free lateral, lateral adnate, lateral connate and lateral interpetiolar. 

The axillary group represent stipules which stand in the axil of the leaf with the stem. Such may be free axillary structures, arising as distinct processes, or connate, when the two stipules unite at their margins and sheath the stem, as in many species of the Polygonacea such as Buckwheat, Rhubarb, Yellow Dock, Knot Weeds, etc. The sheath formed is called an ochrea. 

Moracece or Mulberry Family.—Mostly shrubs or trees, rarely herbs, perennials, many of them containing a milky juice, with small axillary, clustered or solitary unisexual flowers, variously colored leaves ovate with serrate margin and having caducous stipules fruit an akene enclosed by the perianth. 

The leaf of flowering plants is defined as being an organ, usually flat, usually dorso-ventrally placed, which always has one or more axillary buds (See 36.2). In this way true leaves may be distinguished from phyllodes, phylloclades, cladodes, interpetiolarily connate stipules, or from the leaflets of a compound leaf. 

Description Herbaceous perennial. Stems 60-150 cm taU, up to 2 cm in diameter, densely hairy. Leaves alternate, pinnate, 15-30 cm long, long-stipulate leaflets in 8-12 pairs, from narrow-ovate to elliptic, densely hairy on undersides, margins entire. Inflorescence axillary racemes with 3-9 flowers. Calyx tubular, densely hairy. Corolla papilionaceous, pale-yellow. Fruits ovate-spherical legumes, 15-20 mm long, densely covered with long, entangled hairs. Seeds kidney-shaped, brown. 

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