Pl. stipulæ, also stipulas. [mod.L. use of L. stipula, straw, STUBBLE, app. a dim. formation cogn. w. stīpes: see STIPES.
The mod. botanical use of the L. word is due to Linnæus, who seems to have misunderstood (or perhaps intentionally given a new interpretation to) a definition which occurs in dictionaries of the 16th and 17th c., and goes back to Isidore Etym. XVII. iii. § 18, ‘Stipulæ sunt folia seu vaginæ, quibus culmus ambitur.’ Cooper Thes. (1565), has ‘Stipula … the husk that closeth in the straw,’ and Fuchs De Hist. Stirp. Comm., Vocum difficilium explicatio, ‘Stipulæ folia sunt culmum ambientia,’ which could easily be mistaken for a loose expression of the Linnæan sense.]
= STIPULE sb. a. Bot. b. Ornith. (Cent. Dict., 1891.)
1762. Solander, Gardenia, in Phil. Trans., LII. 655. The plant … must be very different from a Jasmine … from the unlikeness in its leaves and stipulas.
1793. Martyn, Lang. Bot., Stipula, a Stipula or Stipule…. A scale at the base of the nascent petioles—or peduncles.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 219. The most … usual situation of the Stipulas is in pairs, one stipula on each side of the base of the foot-stalk.
