bracteoles - good definition needed

JohnRCrellin jrc@crellin.org.uk
Sun, 30 Sep 2007 10:01:27 PDT
I'm not sure this helps but the book I refer to for Northern European
species in general - Stace - (and which is very highly regarded here by
botanists) defines them as "a supplementary or secondary bract" with a
diagram that makes it clear you would expect to have a bract at the base of
the pedicel before you were likely to have a bracteole further up it...

The term bract - or bracteole isn't used in his treatment of the alliums !
(But is, for instance, in the squills. Alliums have spathes or not in that
reference as far as I can see.)

Like you all this maddens me but I am really a chemist and people tell me
they find our jargon maddening ! 

>>  I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for.

Yes I often get that feeling with botanical literature.

John Crellin



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