Scientific Name : Bougainvillea spectabilis Willd.
Common Name : Brazil Bougainvillea, Beautiful Bougainvillea
Chinese Name : 葉子花、毛寶巾、簕杜鵑、九重葛
Family : NYCTAGINACEAE
Local distribution status : Exotic species
| Origin | Brazil. |
|---|---|
| Meanings of name |
The generic name Bougainvillea commemorates Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), a French army officer who discovered the first Bougainvillea sp. in Brazil in 1768. Although it is named as ‘簕杜鵑’ in Chinese, it is phylogenetically far from Rhododendron in Ericaceae. Instead, ‘簕杜鵑’ depicts which the flowers are as charming as Rhododendron while the branchlets are spiny. |
| Vitality | Full sunlight and well-drained soils are needed for the planting. |
| Application |
Brazil Bougainvillea is valued for its glamorous flowers that are long blooming in Hong Kong. Remarkably, the rather magnificent and colourful parts of the flower are regarded as bracts but not petals, which are fused and inconspicuous. Since Brazil Bougainvillea is highly malleable with rather bendable and pendulous branches, it is a versatile ornamental component for parks and gardens, frequently planted into a solitary tree, fences and arches. The plant is relatively fast-growing and requires heavy pruning work to maintain a decent shape. In Hong Kong or southern China, Brazil Bougainvillea blooms all year round but is hard to produce seeds and the cultivation of which is mainly through stem cutting, a kind of vegetative reproduction that a new individual sprouts up and roots from a separated mother stem or branch. Since there is an absence of mating, the individual must be genetically the same with the mother stem. Based on it, we assume that the population of Brazil Bougainvillea could be much narrower than expected in Hong Kong, probably sharing the similar phenomenon as Prunus × yedoensis that the genetic source of the individuals is limited to one mother tree (please refers to Prunus campanulata for more details). |
| Growing habit | Scandent shrub. |
|---|---|
| Height | Up to 10 m or more. |
| Stems | Stem greyish brown. Branchlets puberulous, lenticellate, often spiny. |
| Leaves | Simple leaves alternate. Blade papery, puberulent on both surfaces, ovate to ovate-lanceolate or elliptic, base broadly cuneate to rounded or truncate, apex acuminate, margin entire. |
| Flower | Hermaphroditic. Flowers always in cluster of 3 at the junction of bracts, terminal panicles. Bracts 3, leafy, persistent, colours multiple, commonly white, pink, purple and orange. Perianth tubular, 5-lobed. |
| Fruit | Achenes oblong-ellipsoid, hairy, black. |
| Flowering period | Visible throughout the yearin Hong Kong. |
| Fruiting period | / |
Scientific name above is based on Hong Kong Herbarium website : https://herbarium.gov.hk/en/hk-plant-database/plant-detail/index.html?pType=species&oID=3089
Scientific names from other databases
― Flora of China : Bougainvillea spectabilis Willdenow
― Plants of the World Online : Bougainvillea spectabilis Willd.