Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Bougainvillea glabra
Common name
Bougainvillea
Family
Nyctaginaceae
Where found
Woodland, old habitations and gardens, roadsides, disturbed sites, coastal environs, and near streams. Sydney area and north.
Notes
Introduced srambling shrub or woody climber, usually to about 4 m high, rarely to 9 m high. In Australia, it reproduces by suckering or by the stems rooting where the tips touch the ground. Stems with curved thorns, hairless or sparsely hairy. Older stems eventually become woody with deeply-fissured bark. Leaves alternating up the stems, 4-13 cm long, 15–60 mm wide, upper surface hairless, lower surface sparsely hairy, bases rounded to cordate, margins entire, tips pointed. Flowers tubular, the tube greenish or purplish, 9–20 mm long, with 5 cream, yellowish or whitish lobes each about 2.5 mm long. Flowers in 3s, each flower subtended by a colourful papery bract, usually reddish or purple, 20–50 mm long, 15-40 mm wide. These flower-units may also be grouped into larger branched clusters. Flowers Autumn. Does not produce seed in Australia.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Bougainvillea~glabra (accessed 12 January, 2021)
Brisbane City Council weed identification sheet: https://weeds.brisbane.qld.gov.au/weeds/bougainvillea (accessed 12 January, 2021)
This identification key and fact sheets are available as a free mobile application:
