Also bracte; and in L. form bractea, pl. bracteæ, also occas. bracteas. [ad. L. bractea (formerly used unchanged) a thin plate or leaf of metal, gold-leaf; cf. Fr. bractée.]
1. Bot. A small modified leaf, or scale, growing immediately below the calyx of a plant, or upon the peduncle of a flower.
1770. Ellis, in Phil. Trans., LX. 520. Under this flower-cup are four floral leaves, or bracteæ.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xiii. 149. A lateral leaf to each calyx, which Linnæus calls the … bracte.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 22. The Lavenders … have coloured bracteas.
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), I. 309. There are … no exact limits between bracts and common leaves.
1884. J. E. Taylor, Sagac. & Mor. Plants, 103. In the Yew … some bracts become aborted.
b. attrib., as in bract-sheath; also deriv. Bractless a.
1847. Craig, Bractless, without bracts.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 415. Carex præcox … bract-sheaths short.
2. Zool. A similar appendage found in some of the Hydrozoa.
1878. Bell, Gegenbauer’s Comp. Anat., 97. Nutritive, generative, and tentacular individuals are generally placed together in groups, in such a way that there is one bract to a group.
