noun. A leaflike or scalelike plant part, usually small, sometimes showy or brightly colored, and located just below a flower, a flower stalk, or an inflorescence.

noun. In botany, a leaf in a flower-cluster or subtending a flower, usually differing somewhat from an ordinary leaf in size, form, or texture, often much reduced, and sometimes petaloid, highly colored, and very conspicuous.

noun. In zoology, a part of a hydrozoan likened to a bract of a plant; a hydrophyllium. See cuts under Athorybia and hydrophyllium.

noun. A thin plate of metal used as an ornament, as, for example, one of the gold disk-like ornaments made in Scandinavian countries in the Viking age.

noun. The oval distal exite on the appendages of certain segments of phyllopod crustaceans, as Apus, probably serving a respiratory function.

noun. A leaf, usually smaller than the true leaves of a plant, from the axil of which a flower stalk arises.

noun. Any modified leaf, or scale, on a flower stalk or at the base of a flower.

noun. A leaf or leaf-like structure from the axil of which a the stalk of a flower or an inflorescence arises.

noun. a modified leaf or leaflike part just below and protecting an inflorescence

"A bract is a modified leaf at the base of a flower, and is often more showy than the flower itself - the red bracts of poinsettias are another example."

husk  

bracteole  bractlet  calycle  calyculus  epicalyx  

a-dying  alveoli  bluebell  concocting  defoliation  

blade  bracteole  bractlet  cotyledon  flag