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Common name: Bougainvillea, Cherei (Manipuri), Booganbel बूगनबेल (Hindi), Baganbilas (Bengali), Booganvel बूगनवेल (Marathi), Bouganvila बुगनविला (Konkani), Kagithala Puvvu కాగితాల పువ్వు (Telugu)

Botanical name: Bougainvillea - [ (boo-gan-VIL-lee-uh) named for Louis Antoine de Bougainville, the first Frenchman to cross the Pacific Ocean ] Family: Nyctaginaceae (four o'clock family) - [ (nyk-taj-i-NAY-see-ay) The Nyctaginea (four o'clock) family; (from the Greek nyx or nyxtos, meaning night-blooming) ]

Origin: Brazil

Bougainvillea is a genus of flowering plants native to the tropical and subtropical regions of 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. 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.

Courtesy: - Flowers of India - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia