House Identification Plant

The name comes from French navigator and military commander, Louis Antoine de Bougainville and Philibert Commerçon, a French botanist who were the first Europeans to take note of the plant, in Brazil, in 1768. However German botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow is credited with this identification.

Many of today's bougainvilleas are the result of interbreeding among only three out of the eighteen South American species recognized by botanists. It is said that there are currently over 300 varieties of bougainvillea around the world.