[a. F. foliole, ad. L. foliolum, dim. of folium leaf.]
1. Bot. One of the divisions of a compound leaf; a leaflet.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., ii. 28. This consists of four pieces, which we must call leaves, leaflets, or folioles, having no proper names to express them by, as we have that of petals for the pieces which compose the corolla.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 31. They, as well as all the simple leaves of ordinary appearance, are articulated with the petiole, and are therfore compound leaves reduced to a single foliole.
1852. Th. Ross, Humboldt’s Trav., III. xxix. 177. In herborizing further southward, we found a new palm-tree with fan-leaves, (Corypha maritima), having a free thread between the interstices of the folioles.
2. Zool. A small leaf-like appendage.
1849–52. R. B. Todd, The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, IV. 1205/1. In Boltenia reniformis the stomach is destitute of any internal folioles or lacunæ.
1888. Riverside Nat. Hist., II. 221. The margins of the body and the limbs are furnished with a series of flat transparent leaflets, in which ramify a system of radiating vessels. Similar folioles also arise from the basal joint of the antennæ, and more slender ones sprout from tubercles on the end of the venter.
Hence folioliferous a. [see -(I)FEROUS], bearing folioles or small leaf-like appendages (Cent. Dict.). Foliolose a. [see -OSE], having leaves composed of folioles (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
