xpath and node deletion

sometimes it appears to be easier to remove particular nodes from a document 
than construct muliple xpath  nodes sets

is there any convention or method  for deleting nodes from a document so the 
bulk of the document is returned?

   <root>

        <node  type=a">
                <leaf type="1"/>
                <leaf type="2"/>
        </node>
      <node  type=b">
                <leaf type="1"/>
                <leaf type="2"/>
        </node>


    </root>


and issue  something like  delete(//leaf[@type="2"]) to delete any   type 2 
leaf element