A technique is provided to delete a leaf from a Patricia tree having a direct table and a plurality of PSCB's which decode portions of the pattern of a leaf in the tree without shutting down the functioning of the tree. A leaf having a pattern is identified as a leaf to be deleted. Using the pattern, the tree is walked to identify the location of the leaf to be deleted. The leaf to be deleted is identified and deleted, and any relevant PSCB modified, if necessary. The technique also is applicable to deleting a prefix of a prefix.