Bougainvillea

Where it grows

Bougainvillea is native to coastal forests and inland thickets of central South America. It was named for Louis Antoine de Bougainville, the French admiral on whose 1768 voyage Philibert Commercon collected the plant. It now hangs over walls from Mumbai to Marrakech, Athens to Acapulco, anywhere winters stay above freezing.

How to recognise it

A thorny, woody scrambling climber growing up to ten metres given support. The actual flowers are tiny, tubular, and creamy white, but each cluster of three is wrapped in three enormous papery bracts that resemble petals and provide all the colour. The leaves are oval and bright green.

Garden & cultural uses

Bougainvillea flowers best when slightly stressed by drought; rich, wet soil produces leaves at the expense of bracts. Modern cultivars include compact and double forms, dwarf varieties for containers, and variegated leaf selections. It is the official flower of Guam, of Karachi in Pakistan, and of more cities than can be listed.

In horticulture

Most “bougainvilleas” in the trade are hybrids between three species; the bract colour can shift with soil pH and age, sometimes producing two colours on the same plant.