Thailand specimen tree Montanoa bipinnatifida, or Pom Pom bush in Botanical Gardens Krabi Province Thailand

• Contributor: MediaWorldImages / Alamy Stock Photo
• Image ID: A566WN
• File size: 50 MB (2.7 MB Compressed download)
• Releases: Model - no | Property - no
• Dimensions: 3413 x 5120 px | 28.9 x 43.3 cm | 11.4 x 17.1 inches | 300dpi
• Date taken: 11 March 2007
• Location: Krabi Thailand

More information

Bougainvillea is a genus of flowering plants native to South America from Brazil west to Peru and south to southern Argentina (Chubut Province). Different authors accept between four and 18 species in the genus. The name comes from Louis Antoine de Bougainville, an admiral in the French Navy who discovered the plant in Brazil in 1768. They are thorny, woody, vines growing anywhere from 1-12 meters tall, scrambling over other plants with their hooked 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 2-6 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 colors 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