Bract - Variants

Variants

Some bracts are brightly colored and serve the function of attracting pollinators, either together with the perianth or instead of it. Examples of this type of bract include Euphorbia pulcherrima (poinsettia) and Bougainvillea: both of these have large colourful bracts surrounding much smaller, less colourful flowers.

In grasses, each floret (flower) is enclosed in a pair of papery bracts, called the lemma (lower bract) and palea (upper bract), while each spikelet (group of florets) has a further pair of bracts at its base called glumes. These bracts form the chaff removed from cereal grain during threshing and winnowing.

Bats may detect acoustic signals from dish shaped bracts such as those of Marcgravia evenia.

A prophyll is a leaf-like structure, such as a bracteole, subtending a single flower or pedicel. The term can also mean the lower bract on a peduncle.

The frequently showy pair of bracts of Euphorbia species in subgenus Lacanthis are the cyathophylls.

Bracts subtend the cone scales in the seed cones of many conifers, and in some cases, such as Pseudotsuga, they extend beyond the cone scales.

• Bracts of Bougainvillea glabra, differ in colour from the non-bract leaves, and attract pollinators

• Bracts along a banana flower stalk surround the rows of flowers

• Euphorbia milii var. vulcanii cyathia bearing a pair of pinkish cyathophylls

• Colourful bracts of Ananas bracteatus