> $('form.formclass').find('li/label').each(....
That means "all LABEL tags that are a direct descendant of a LI tag that is a child of a FORM tag with the class 'formclass'." $('form.formclass').find('li label').each(.... "All LABEL tags that are a child of an LI tag that is a child of a FORM tag with the class 'formclass'." The former will match: <form class="formclass"><fieldset><ul><li><label for="...">... But not: <form class="formclass"><fieldset><ul><li><div><label for="...">... Since the LABEL is no longer a direct descendant of the LI. The "li label" version would match either. Note that find() is working about the same as the space, so you could write: $('form.formclass li label') or $('form.formclass li/label') Also note that as of 1.2, I think li/label doesn't work at all anymore without the XPath plugin. The preferred syntax is now "li > label" instead of "li/label". The preferred syntax will also work with older versions. --Erik