bract

American  

[brakt] / brækt /

noun

Botany.

1. a specialized leaf or leaflike part, usually situated at the base of a flower or inflorescence.

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bract British  

/ brækt /

noun

1. a specialized leaf, usually smaller than the foliage leaves, with a single flower or inflorescence growing in its axil

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bract Scientific  

/ brăkt /

1. A modified leaf growing just below a flower or flower stalk. Bracts are generally small and inconspicuous, but some are showy and petallike, as the brightly colored bracts of bougainvillaea or the white or pink bracts of flowering dogwoods.

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Other Word Forms

• bracteal
  adjective
• bracted
  adjective
• bractless
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of bract

1760–70; earlier bractea < Latin: a thin plate of metal

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bract

The real flowers are small, yellow and appear at the tip of the stem surrounded by the bract.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 13, 2023

Visitors get to see what the wildling looks like, a tall, leggy bush with bract clusters isolated at the end of long branches.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 5, 2017

A dogwood poinsettia that McLaughlin grew from seed he received from Le Duc is central to the exhibit, though it looks pretty prosaic — a lanky vase-shaped shrub with small white bract clusters.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 5, 2017

Instead it is achieved by breeding to increase the red pigmentation in the layers of bract cells.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 5, 2017

Mostly taller and stouter; spikes larger and less attenuated or even truncate below, approximate or even aggregated, the head erect or nearly so and the lowest bract occasionally prominent; perigynium thicker and firmer in texture.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray

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Related Words

• frond
• needle
• petal
• stalk

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