History of the Bougainvillea

Most of us walk by plants everyday, but fail to realize the scientific history of the flora that surrounds us. This post will cover a brief history and scientific description of the Bougainvillea plant that has spread throughout the world.

-Kingdom: Plantae
-Order: Caryophyllales
-Family: Nyctaginaceae
-Tribe: Bougainvilleeae
-Genus: Bougainvillea

First Record of the Bougainvillea

• The first recorded documentation of the Bougainvillea plant was by a Frenchman named Philibert Commercon who was traveling with the French Navy, and accompanying an explorer by the name of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, the discovery of the plant was in Brazil in the year 1768.

• Twenty years after the recording, it was published by French Botanist, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, who is well known as the first to classify flowering plants. It was published as "Buginvillæa" in the Genera Plantarum in 1789. The spelling of the name was changed in the 1930s and recorded in the Index Kewensis.

By Prenn [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

• Many of the Bougainvillea seen today are the result of inbreeding, resulting in 300 different types of species, such as the Bougainvillea Peruviana and Buttiana.

• Contact with the sap from a Bougainvillea can cause skin rashes, some can be quite severe.

• Fun Fact: Different species of the plant are the official flowers of Guam where it is known as "Puti Tai Nobiu".

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References

• Bioone Research:
  http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.3372/wi.42.42114

• Perak. Info
  https://web.archive.org/web/20110721231201/http://www.perak.info/kinta/ipoh.htm

• Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Bougainvillea.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 3 Mar. 2017, www.britannica.com/plant/bougainvillea. https://www.britannica.com/plant/bougainvillea

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