Bougainvillea sp.

paper flower

The French botanist Philibert Commerson was the first European to describe Bougainvillea, which he discovered during his circumnavigation of the globe from 1766-1769 under the French Navy admiral Louis de Bougainville, after whom the plant is named. Commerson had an assistant for the voyage, Jeanne Baré, who was actually also his lover; French regulations prohibited women from going on such voyages, so Baré disguised herself as a man and thereby became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Perhaps she was even the one to discover the plant in its native South America.

While most people would consider watering their plants more to help them flower more, Bougainvillea actually blooms less with too much rainfall or irrigation. Bougainvillea prefer full sun and can be kept in check through pruning and shaping but blooms only occur on new growth, so one has to compromise between unruliness and beauty. The colors on this plant are indeed beautiful but the plant is a vigorous vine with long thorns that help it climb anything nearby. While thorns make it frustrating for maintenance, they make the plant a good choice for keeping out unwanted visitors, who would have to be pretty desperate to try getting through a mature hedge of bougainvillea.

The beautiful colors of the plant are not due so much to the flowers but to the modified leaves called bracts that surround the little white flowers and attract pollinators to them; the same is true for poinsettia.

Tubers (underground stems) have been boiled to make strength medicine by the Akha tribe in Thailand, while bracts and flowers have been used in Mexico for controlling coughs.

Fresh floral extracts have shown effective insecticidal properties; perhaps this is a reason why few pests affect bougainvilleas. It will be nice to have more widespread availability of alternatives to synthetic pesticides in the future, as research and development in this area is still small.