What is "stipules"

Usage examples of "stipules".

Certain plants excrete a sweet juice, apparently for the sake of eliminating something injurious from their sap: this is effected by glands at the base of the stipules in some Leguminosae, and at the back of the leaf of the common laurel.

The wind sweeps up the leaves on the floor, too, and the churning debris pumps around the perimeter of the clearing— red autumn leaves, moist green leaves, petals, stipules, whole bracts—pumps around like a carousel without horses but with strange beasts formed of leaves.