noun
definition
A large bract that envelops or subtends a whole inflorescence, typically a spadix.
Examples of spathe in a Sentence
The plants have long narrow leaves springing from the bulb and a central scape bearing one or more generally large, white or yellow, drooping or inclined flowers, which are enveloped before opening in a membranous spathe.
The small flowers are densely crowded on thick fleshy spikes, which are associated with, and often more or less enveloped by, a large leaf (bract), the so-called spathe, which, as in cuckoo-pint, where it is green in colour, Richardia, where it is white, creamy or yellow, Anthurium, where it is a brilliant scarlet, is often the most striking feature of the plant.
These are followed by the inflorescence, a fleshy spadix bearing in the lower part numerous closely crowded simple unisexual flowers and continued above into a purplish or yellowish appendage; the spadix is enveloped by a leafy spathe, constricted in the lower part to form a chamber, in which are the flowers.
The insects visit the plant in large numbers, attracted by the foetid smell, and act as carriers of the pollen from one spathe to another.
As the fruit ripens the spathe withers, and the brilliant red berries are exposed.
It has long, narrow, flat, obscurely keeled leaves, a deciduous spathe, and a globose umbel of whitish flowers, among which are small bulbils.
A long leaf (spathe) borne immediately below the spike forms an apparent continuation of the scape, though really a lateral outgrowth from it, the spike of flowers being terminal.
The flowers spring from, or are enclosed in, a spathe, and are unisexual and regular, with generally a calyx and corolla, each of three members; the stamens are in whorls of three, the inner whorls are often barren; the two to fifteen carpels form an inferior ovary containing generally numerous ovules on often large, produced, parietal placentas.
A sheathing bract enclosing one or several flowers is called a spathe.
The spathe protects the flowers in their young state, and often falls off after they are developed, or hangs down From Strasburger's Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.
The spathe wraps around itself to form a space that encloses a spherical head of flowers, called a spadix (figure 2 ).
The spathe wraps around itself to form a space that encloses a spherical head of flowers, called a spadix (figure 2).
Dragons Mouth (Arum Crinitum) - In flower this is very grotesque, from the singular shape of its broad speckled spathe.
The spathe bracts resemble a corolla, and consist of four large pure white spreading leaves from the base of the spadix or cone of flowers.
N. Marvel has a bladder-like spathe like an Allium, and a pale and shapely flower.