Spathe Definition

Spathe Sentence Examples

• 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.