Bougainvillea

A vigorous, thorny tropical woody vine from Brazil, grown across the warm world for one of the most spectacular floral displays in horticulture — sheets of magenta, purple, red, orange, pink, or white that can smother a wall, fence, or pergola. The vivid color, though, is not from petals: it comes from papery BRACTS (modified leaves) that surround the true flowers, which are small, slender, and white to cream. Bougainvillea spectabilis is a sprawling, climbing scrambler armed with sharp, woody thorns; in frost-free climates it reaches 15-40 feet, hauling itself up supports and over rooftops, but it can also be kept hard-pruned as a shrub, a hedge, or a container plant. It is frost-tender and hardy in the ground only in USDA zones 9b-11b; everywhere colder it is grown as a greenhouse, conservatory, or seasonal container plant and overwintered indoors. It blooms most heavily when grown lean and a little dry in blazing full sun, which is why the showiest bougainvilleas are often the ones that look slightly neglected.

A vigorous evergreen woody climber from Brazil — called primavera or buganvilia in its homeland — grown across the warm world for its long-lasting, brilliant papery bracts in magenta, purple, white, or pink. The vivid color is not from petals: it comes from those papery BRACTS (modified leaves), which surround the small, tubular, cream-colored true flowers tucked at their centers. POWO (Kew) and Flora e Funga do Brasil both record Bougainvillea glabra as native to Brazil. Left to climb it hauls itself up walls, fences, and pergolas to 10-30 feet, but kept pruned it makes a dense, mounding shrub; it is armed with sharp thorns and flowers hardest when grown lean, hot, and a little dry in blazing full sun. It is frost-tender and hardy in the ground only in USDA zones 9b-11b; everywhere colder it is grown as a greenhouse, conservatory, or container plant and overwintered indoors.