Definition of Palea

1. n. The interior chaff or husk of grasses.

Definition of Palea

1. a small bract [n -LEAE] : PALEAL [adj]

Medical Definition of Palea

1. In a grass floret, the upper one of the two bracts enclosing a flower. (09 Oct 1997)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Palea

pale
pale-
pale-browed tinamou
pale-browed tinamous
pale ale
pale blue dot
pale chrysanthemum aphid
pale coral root
pale globe
pale hypertension
pale in comparison
pale infarct
pale thrombus
pale violet
pale yellow
palea (current term)
paleaceous
paleae
paleal
paleanthropological
paleanthropology
paleate
palebuck
palebucks
paled
paleechinoidea
paleencephalon
paleface

Literary usage of Palea

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Synoptical Flora of North America: The Gamopetalae, Being a Second Edition by Asa Gray (1888)
"palea? of the sordid or merely whitish pappus entire, surmounted by the awn, conspicuous ' »nd species: scapes slender, a span to 18 inches high: akènes ..."

2. Flora of the Southern United States: Containing Abridged Descriptions of the by Alvan Wentworth Chapman (1872)
"Grain adherent to the upper palea, downy at tha apex. 34. FESTUCA. ... Lower palea with a twisted, bent, or straight awn on the back, or below the apex 41. ..."

3. A Flora of Western Middle California by Willis Linn Jepson (1901)
"the different bractlets or flowers not measurable. palea usually usually one of them bearing a bent or twisted awn; internodes between shorter than its ..."

4. A Text-book of Grasses with Especial Reference to the Economic Species of by Albert Spear Hitchcock (1914)
"The palea is the bract standing between the flower and the rachilla. ... The palea is usually embraced by the lemma at the margins, or sometimes entirely ..."

5. Botany of the United States North of Virginia: Comprising Descriptions of by Lewis Caleb Beck (1848)
"Glumes of a thinner texture than the palea: ; the lower one often (rarely ... Lower flower neutral, and consisting of a single palea resembling the glume ..."

6. Annals and Magazine of Natural History by William Jardine (1845)
"The normal palea possesses five nerves, of which the central one extends to the apex of the ... On its metamorphosis into a leaf the palea becomes elongated ..."

7. Flora Cestrica: An Attempt to Enumerate and Describe the Flowering and by William Darlington (1837)
"... scabrous on the keel ; upper palea shorter, obtuse, emarginate, arched, or curved towards the lower one, scabrous on both keele. ..."

8. The Grasses of Great Britain by John Edward Sowerby, Charles Johnson (1861)
"The awn is occasionally three times the length of the palea. The references to the magnified views of the flowers accord with those of A. pratensis. Annual. ..."

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