Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
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Bougainvillea glabra
Bougainvillea
Nyctaginaceae
Woodland, old habitations and gardens, roadsides, disturbed sites, coastal environs, and near streams. Sydney area and north.
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)
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