Flamboyant Bougainvillea Outfit

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

An unpretentious drought-resistant plant, born in the tropics of South America, today can be found in many resort cities of the planet, where summer lasts twelve months a year. Where summer alternates with cold winters, Bougainvillea is grown in flower pots, hiding in a warm room with the arrival of low temperatures. The abundant and bright flowering of Bougainvillea gave an occasion for an oriental man who loves miracles to make the plant a monetary symbol that promises quick financial success to its owner

Description

Nature has generously endowed Bougainvillea with the ability to survive in various conditions. Somewhere the plant becomes a shrub, somewhere a small tree, but most of all she likes to be a vine, striving for the sun. Clinging to a support with its pointed thorns, emitting a wax-like black substance, a vine can reach a length of 12 m.

The seemingly smooth, flexible stems have tiny thorns along their length, which are used by the plant to successfully move through trees. They can come as a surprise to a fan unaware of the existence of a small threat. Even gardeners who know about thorns often injure their hands when cutting a fast-growing shrub to give it the desired shape.

Simple oval-pointed or heart-shaped leaves are evergreen if Bougainvillea grows in places where periodically heaven bestows rain, or the gardener systematically waters the plant. Where, among the annual seasons, there is a dry, long season, or the plant is forgotten to water for a long period, the leaves periodically fall off. Leaf width ranges from 2 to 6 cm, length - from 4 to 13 cm in different types of Bougainvillea. Despite the simplicity of the shape, the green leaves are very decorative.

But, nevertheless, the plant owes its popularity not to the leaves, but to the flowering period, which in favorable conditions lasts all year round, and in unfavorable conditions - from four to six weeks. Moreover, the "highlight" of flowering is not graceful white flowers, which are tiny in size, and therefore gathering in inflorescences of three pieces, but bright modified (altered) leaves, called "bracts". For their large size, sometimes you will not immediately see the modest flowers.

The rich palette of bracts includes white, yellow, orange, pink, crimson, red, violet, purple paints. Their list may well expand, because unlike most plants that need the participation of breeders, that is, human hands, in the creation of hybrid species, Bougainvillea herself disposes of her own destiny, creating hybrid individuals in natural conditions. They are called that - natural hybrids, and are recognized as a common occurrence throughout the world.

The Bougainvillea fruit, crowning the plant's growing cycle, is a 5-lobed narrow achene.

What's in your name

The tradition of botanists to give names to plants in honor of people who made their own contribution to the knowledge of the world around us, did not pass by the bright Bougainvillea.

The name of the plant preserves the memory of the Comte de Bougainville (1729 - 1811), who, before receiving the title of Count, went through many professions, but is noted in history as a navigator, including as the leader of the first round-the-world voyage made by the French.

This trip around the world was attended by a French botanist, Philibert Commerson, who was the first European to describe the plant later named Bougainvillea. Although some historians believe that the role of the "discoverer" of Bougainvillea belongs to the Frenchwoman Jeanne Barre, who became the first woman to take part in a sea voyage around the world. She got on the ship by fraudulent means, dressed in men's clothes and becoming an assistant botanist.

In the literature, you can find different readings of the Latin name "Bougainvillea" in Russian. In addition, in different countries, people give Bougainvillea their own names, which reflect their view of the flowering plant.

We will talk about the types of plants and growing conditions another time.