Description

Bougainvillea spectabilis They are thorny, woody, growing anywhere from ***2 meters tall, scrambling over other plants with their hooked thorns. The thorns are tipped with a black, waxy substance that is easily left in the flesh of an unsuspecting victim. They are everygreen where rainfall occurs all year, or deciduous if there is adry season . The leaves are alternate, simple ovate-acuminate, ***3 cm long and **6 cm broad. The actua 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.