Definition of "spikelet" []

• A small or secondary spike, characteristic of grasses and sedges, having a varying number of reduced flowers each subtended by one or two scalelike bracts. (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.

• "The _spikelets_ are linear-oblong, glabrous or villous, 1/8 to 1/4 inch long, sessile and stalked spikelets close together; the pedicel of the stalked spikelet is thick about 1/3 or less than the length of the sessile spikelet, ciliate on one side, confluent with the thick callus of the sessile spikelet, which is sparsely bristly."
• "Above about 35°C, however, spikelet fertility drops off noticeably."
• "In a sorghum flower, only one spikelet of each pair is fertile."