Scattered or infrastipular (just below the base of a leaf), and may be both scattered and infrastipular on the same stalk, broad or narrow at the base.
     Aciculi are lesser prickles on a small spreading base, needle-like in sharpness.
     Bristles or setae (stiff or weak) are sharp needle-like prickles, and a rose beset with bristles is said to be setose. Bristles are often tipped with glands--little globes of fragrant liquid, as in Moss roses.

     We speak of pubescence, meaning the presence of hairs. Like bristles, hairs may be present on branches, leaflets, peduncle (stem of a rose bloom), calyx-tube (seed envelop on which the rose petals are based), and sepals (the green envelop about the petals in bud). Pubescence has several forms, and is quite important in making an examination. One of our authorities holds that pubescence on branches, peduncles, and calyx-tube is a fixed feature, not variable, while on leaflets it may be variable. We use the words:

     Pubescent when hairs are short, soft, thinly covering the surface; pilose when long and straight; tomentose when soft and woolly; villous when long, soft and curving; hirsute when long, harsh and stiff or hispid.

     Leaves of garden roses are made up of leaflets, three to many, the number always odd, in pairs along a petiole(stem) with an odd leaflet called the terminal at the end, which is often larger than the others, as in Chinese roses, but not always so. This petiole is subject to scrutiny. It may be smooth, have pubescence, have glands, have aciculi; may be stout or filiform (thread-like). Leaflets may be sessile(sitting very closely upon the petiole) as the leaflets of Gallica roses seem to do, or may be set away on little stems (petiolules), as in Damascena roses.
     Leaflets are the objects of much examination. They vary greatly in form, color, texture, surface covering, snipping at the edges, and the manner in which they are held on the stalk. For

instance the texture of Gallica roses is coriaceous (leathery). Rugose in texture indicates a wrinkled surface due to the network of veins enclosing rough spaces. Gallica leaflets are somewhat rugose; Rugosa roses are typically so. While the leaflets of Damascena roses show the network of veins, they are neither leathery nor rugose, being quite soft. As to the manner in which leaflets are held, Centifolia leaflets are inclined to hang down; Gallica leaflets are held somewhat flatter; and Alba leaflets flatter still.
     Before we go further in description of leaflets, it seems necessary to speak of two other leaf-forms--stipules and bracts, so we may be more comprehensive in applying terms which describe certain features of all three forms.

     At the base of the leaf, where it adjoins the stalk, is a small leaf-like appendage to both sides of the petiole, called a stipule, a leaf-form of much importance. Most garden roses have this stipule, adhering for a half an inch to an inch along the petiole, as an adnate stipule. However, we have three kinds among our roses which have a free (not adnate) stipule, adhering at the base of the petiole only. This peculiar feature sets apart Banksia, Bracteata, and Laevigata (Cherokee) roses.
     The bract is usually a small linear leaf-form showing up in the inflorescence of clustering sorts where a peduncle breaks away from the flowering shoot or within the cluster itself, where the pedicels (lesser flower-stems) carry their bloom away from the main stem.

     In describing the leaf-forms of our roses, their leaves, leaflets, stipules, and bracts, we again use authoritative language.

     The forms of leaflets are not strange. We know the meaning of oblong, oval, round, ovate, linear, lanceolate, but when we put an ob- before a word to qualify it, we have to remember that the shape is by it inverted in the leaflet; as obovate is ovate attached at the narrow end. When we put sub- before a term, the qualification means almost or somewhat; as we say sub-acute, meaning almost but not quite acute; or sub-globose, meaning not quite round yet not oval.

     Three good words, selected as most useful among many, describe the outside end of a leaflet. They are used, also, to describe the ends of stipules, bracts and sepals.

     Acute, meaning a short ending in a point.
     Acuminate, meaning a long ending in a point.
     Cuspidate, meaning an abrupt point from a rounded end.