I'm not sure this helps but the book I refer to for Northern European species in general - Stace - (and which is very highly regarded here by botanists) defines them as "a supplementary or secondary bract" with a diagram that makes it clear you would expect to have a bract at the base of the pedicel before you were likely to have a bracteole further up it... The term bract - or bracteole isn't used in his treatment of the alliums ! (But is, for instance, in the squills. Alliums have spathes or not in that reference as far as I can see.) Like you all this maddens me but I am really a chemist and people tell me they find our jargon maddening ! >> I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for. Yes I often get that feeling with botanical literature. John Crellin