Common names of bougainvillea

The bugasvilla has many common names

Bougainvillea is a climber that is widely used to cover walls, lattices and arches, both in tropical and temperate countries where temperatures are mild. In fact, it is easy to fall in love with it, since it also does not require special care. But precisely because of that too you may start to use one of the many common names given to it throughout history every time you talk about it.

Each town has its customs and traditions, as well as its language. Long before botanists began to give plants scientific - and universal - names, our protagonist already had many common names.

What is bougainvillea called in other countries?

Bougainvillea is a climber that blooms in spring

The common names we give to plants are an interesting topic; not in vain, they are part of our history, past and present. Bougainvillea has a very high ornamental value, blooming for most of the year weather permitting, so we just had to learn how to grow it to decorate our gardens and patios with it.

Since it is native to tropical and subtropical America, it was in those places that the first common names were created. We Europeans would not enjoy it until the French sailor and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811) brought it from Brazil.Hence, the name we gave it is, therefore, much more recent.

And with that said, let's see what it is called in other countries:

  • Bougainvillea: this name is used in Mexico, Cuba, Chile, Guatemala and Ecuador. Sometimes I have also heard it in Spain, but very few times.
  • Buganvilla: It is used mainly in Spain, but also in Peru.
  • Paper: is the name they give it in the north of Peru. It is also called a paper flower, since its bracts (which are leaves that fulfill the same function as the petals) look like paper.
  • Santa Rita: used in Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. This name may come from the saying "Santa Rita, what you give, you take away." And it is that this plant has the habit of producing many, many flowers, so many that they hide the support on which they climb.
  • Came out: It is used in Mexico, specifically in the town of Héctor de Coco and in the state of Zacatecas.
  • Always alive: It is used in Colombia, where the warm climate makes the plant bloom for months, and where it can also keep its leaves.
  • Trinitarian: It is a name that we will hear in Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.
  • Summer: widely used in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia and Panama. And it is that in summer it is when it is more beautiful.
  • Napoleon: used in Panama, Costa Rica and Honduras.

In English-speaking countries it is called bougainvillea.

What is the correct name?

Bougainvillea has many common names

Image - Flickr / Slices of Light ✴

The truth is that there are none that are wrong. The towns have different ways of calling bougainvillea, and that does not mean that those names are incorrect. But we are not going to fool you either: when looking for information about a plant, whatever it is, it is better to know the scientific name since it is the same all over the world.

Although it is true that bougainvillea is a well-known climbing shrub, we will have no choice but to know the scientific name of the different species if we want to cultivate or find out the origin of a specific one.

For that, you have to know that it belongs to the genus Bougainvillea, a name given to it by the naturalist Philibert Commerson (1727-1773) in honor of the aforementioned Louis Antoine de Bougainville. These two men sailed around the world together between 1766 and 1769.

Now, we could say that it was not made official until 1789, which was when it was published in the Generates Plantarum, a work of the French botanist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. But apart from that, within this genus we find 18 species or types of bougainvillea, some of which are the following:

What types of bougainvillea are there?

Bougainvillea x buttiana is an evergreen climber

Image - Wikimedia / David J. Stang

Of the 18 different species there are, the reality is that there are only a few that are frequently grown in gardens. They are as follows:

  • Bougainvillea x buttiana: it is a climbing shrub that grows in Central America and northern South America. It produces bracts or false orange or pink petals.
  • glabrous bougainvillea: it grows in Brazil and reaches 10 meters in height. Their bracts can be lilac, pink or orange. See file.
  • Peruviana bougainvillea: it is an endemic climber of Peru and Ecuador, which reaches 10 meters in height. Its bracts (false petals) are pink.
  • Bougainvillea sanderiana: its scientific name is Bougainvillea glabra 'Sanderiana'. It is a variety that has bracts (or false petals) of an intense fuchsia color.
  • bougainvillea spinosa: It is a bush armed with thorns that reaches 60 centimeters in height that lives in Bolivia and Peru.
  • Bougainvillea spectabilis: a climber that grows in the Amazon region and in the Atlantic forest (it is a plant formation present in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina). See file.

And if you've been wanting to know more, click here to find out how to take care of it:

Red bougainvillea
Related article:
How to care for a bougainvillea

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