Natures Beautiful Wallpaper

9/12/12

Bougainvilea Flower Description And Very Very Beautiful Images Collection

Description Of Bougainvillea:

Bougainvillea is a genus of flowering plants native to South America from Brazil west to Peru and south to southern Argentina.

They are thorny, woody vines growing anywhere from 1 to 12 metres tall.Scrambling over other plants with their spiky thorns. The thorns are tipped with a black, waxy substance. They are evergreen where rainfall occurs all year, or deciduous if there is a dry season. The leaves are alternate, simple ovate-acuminate, 4–13 cm long and 2to6 cm broad. The actual flower of the plant is small and generally white but each cluster of three flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts with the bright colours associated with the plant including pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white or yellow. Bougainvillea glabra is sometimes referred to as "paper flower" because the bracts are thin and papery. The fruit is a narrow five-lobed achene.

Bougainvillea are relatively pest-free plants, but may suffer from worms, snails and aphids. The larvae of some Lepidoptera species also use them as food plants, for example the Giant Leopard Moth.

Bougainvilleas are popular ornamental plants in most areas with warm climates. Locarno in Switzerland, with its mild Mediterranean climate, is famous for its bougainvilleas.

The first European to describe these plants was Philibert Commerçon, a French botanist accompanying French Navy admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his voyage of circumnavigation, and first published for him by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789.

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