Bougainvillea is a genus of thorny ornamental vines, bushes, and trees belonging to the four o’ clock family, Nyctaginaceae. It is native to eastern South America, found from Brazil, west to Peru, and south to southern Argentina. The inflorescence consists of large colourful sepal-like bracts which surround three simple waxy flowers.
The first European to describe these plants was Philibert Commerçon, a botanist accompanying French Navy admiral Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his voyage of circumnavigation of the Earth, and first published by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu in 1789. Twenty years after Commerçon’s description, it was first published as ‘Buginvillæa’ in Genera Plantarum by A. L. de Jussieu in 1789.
The genus was subsequently spelled in several ways until it was finally established as “Bougainvillea” in the Index Kewensis in the 1930s.
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