Definition of "spathe" []

• A leaflike bract that encloses or subtends a flower cluster or spadix, as in the jack-in-the-pulpit and the calla. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "An enveloping leaf (bract), called the spathe, which is often brilliantly colored, surrounds the florets, or fruits, that are disposed upon a spadix."
• "-- Remarkably handsome plants with fine foliage and curious inflorescence more or less enclosed in a hooded spathe, which is generally richly coloured and marked."
• "a bloom, that evolves inside a tube like leaf, that is called 'spathe'; with the begining of bloom, the bloom comes out of the spathe, and the flowers open. each flower has six petals that surround a round petal, an addition which is called "tiara" a sort of crown like feature. the color of this tiara is either white or yellow. the flower has 6"