In botanical terminology, a phyllary, also known an involucral bract or tegule, is a single

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

of the

involucre In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or o ...

of a

composite flower A pseudanthium (Greek for "false flower"; ) is an inflorescence that resembles a flower. The word is sometimes used for other structures that are neither a true flower nor a true inflorescence. Examples of pseudanthia include flower heads, compos ...

. The involucre is the grouping of bracts together. Phyllaries are reduced leaf-like structures that form one or more whorls immediately below a flower head.

Function

Phyllaries provide protection to developing flowers and fruits. In the dandelion hybrid ''Taraxacum japonicum'' × ''officinale'', recurved phyllaries help defend the flowers from herbivory by

slugs Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a smal ...

. They sometimes assist in the dispersal of fruits. The hooked phyllaries of burdock species (''

Arctium ''Arctium'' is a genus of biennial plants commonly known as burdock, family Asteraceae. Native to Europe and Asia, several species have been widely introduced worldwide. Burdock's clinging properties, in addition to providing an excellent mech ...

'') cling to the fur and feathers of animals, dispersing the seeds away from the parent plant (

exozoochory In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors ...

Structure and arrangement

Phyllary morphology is useful in plant identification as between species of the

Asteraceae The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...

family, they may vary in number, shape, width, length, hairiness, presence of glands, or texture.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite web , last1=Clark , first1=Patterson , title=Burdock: Sowing seeds with fur and bur , url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/metro/urban-jungle/pages/121120.html?noredirect=on , work=The Washington Post , access-date=26 May 2019 , language=en {{cite journal , last1=Hawthorn , first1=Wayne R. , last2=Hayne , first2=P. D. , title=Seed production and predispersal seed predation in the biennial composite species, ''Arctium minus'' (Hill) Bernh. and ''A. lappa'' L. , journal=Oecologia , date=1 January 1978 , volume=34 , issue=3 , pages=283–295 , doi=10.1007/BF00344907 , pmid=28309875 , bibcode=1978Oecol..34..283H , s2cid=6102531 , language=en , issn=1432-1939 {{cite web , title=Jepson Herbarium: Jepson Flora Project: Jepson eFlora: Glossary , url=http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/glossary.html , website=ucjeps.berkeley.edu , access-date=26 May 2019 {{cite web , title=Glossary of botanical terms for Compositae , url=http://www.kew.org/science/tropamerica/boliviacompositae/glossary.html , website=www.kew.org , access-date=26 May 2019 {{cite web , last1=Reznicek , first1=A.A. , last2=Voss , first2=E.G. , last3=Walters , first3=B.S. , title=Asteraceae , url=https://michiganflora.net/family.aspx?id=ASTERACEAE , website=michiganflora.net , publisher=Michigan Flora , access-date=26 May 2019 {{Cite web, url=http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/glossary/glossary-list/?TerTerm=phyllary, title=NYGB Steele Herbarium Glossary, access-date=May 23, 2019 {{cite journal , last1=Wu , first1=Fu-Yu , last2=Yahara , first2=Tetsukazu , title=Recurved Taraxacum phyllaries function as a floral defense: experimental evidence and its implication for Taraxacum evolutionary history , journal=Ecological Research , date=1 May 2017 , volume=32 , issue=3 , pages=313–329 , doi=10.1007/s11284-017-1444-5 , s2cid=46343283 , language=en , issn=1440-1703 Plant morphology Flowers