BRACT

An altered leaf, which is placed at the base of a flower on the outside of the calyx. It is the first attempt made by the common leaves to change into the floral organs. In general the bract is small and inconspicuous, but it occasionally arquires a considerable size and a brilliant colour, as in Sulira comosa and splendens, and the Brazilian pine-apple, and more especially in the various kinds of Arum, where it constitutes the large enveloping leaf, called spath, in which the spadix of those extraordinary plants is enveloped. This word forms the adjectives bracliscent, a uming the appearance of a bract; bractial, furnished with bracts; bractiolate, having little bracts. A cupule is a collection of bracts united into a cup; an involucre is the same organs arranged in a whorl. The flowers of gra es and cyperaceous plants consist of nothing but little bracts called palea, and glumes. BRADYPODS, [s. 178]