spadix

American  

[spay-diks] / ˈspeɪ dɪks /

noun

Botany.

• spadices
  plural

1. an inflorescence consisting of a spike with a fleshy or thickened axis, usually enclosed in a spathe.

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spadix British  

/ ˈspeɪdɪks /

noun

1. a racemose inflorescence having many small sessile flowers borne on a fleshy stem, the whole usually being surrounded by a spathe: typical of aroid plants

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spadix Scientific  

/ spā′dĭks /

• spadices
  plural

1. A fleshy spike of minute flowers, usually enclosed within a spathe, as in the arums.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• spadices
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of spadix

1750–60; < Latin spādīx a broken palm branch and its fruit < Greek spā́dīx a torn-off palm bough, chestnut brown; akin to spân to tear off

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

spadix spadices

The central stalk, called a spadix, can grow above caretakers’ heads just weeks after first sprouting above the soil.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

Its hoodlike structure is called a spathe, which envelopes a bulb-shaped structure called the spadix, a fleshy knob dotted by dozens of tiny, petal-less yellow flowers.

From Salon ● May 27, 2025

But once she blooms, viewers can expect to see Putricia unfold a vibrant maroon or crimson skirt, known as a spathe, around her spadix which is the large spike in the middle of the plant.

From BBC ● Jan. 22, 2025

In another of her arrangements, a mass of tissue-petaled ivory peonies is disrupted by an alabaster anthurium, its spadix jutting up from the flower’s platelike surface.

From New York Times ● Mar. 4, 2020

At the top of the thick rounded spadix within, the skunk cabbage florets there first mature their stigmas, and pollen must therefore be carried to them on the bodies of visitors.

From Wild Flowers An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors by Neltje Blanchan

P: And tilled fields and heavy-sheathed palm-trees, S: And cornfields and palm-trees having fine spadices?

From Three Translations of The Koran (Al-Qur'an) side by side by Abdullah Yusuf Ali

The flowers spring in branching spadices from the axils of the leaves, and as the trees are unisexual it is necessary in cultivation to fertilize the female flowers by artificial means.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 9 "Dagupan" to "David" by Various

The flowers are borne in enormous fleshy spadices, the male and female on distinct plants.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 6 "Cockaigne" to "Columbus, Christopher" by Various

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