The plant of the month (March): Bougainvillea

This genere owns to the Nyctaginaceae family. It's originary from South America, specifically from Brazil. This plant is present around the world due to its resistance to almost all climates, although it prefers warm and dry climates without extreme wind, with temperatures until -4ºC.
Bougainvillea is a climber plant, the original form is a bush, although nowadays it has a lot of uses like wall cover, hedges, bushes, bonsais, etc.
The most characteristic of this plant is its colorful "petals", that in fact, instead of petals like they could seem at first glance , they are modificated and colored leaves, called bracts. The true flower is in the middle of the bracts, it's very small and it has the shape of a large tube, wide at the vertex, where there are the true petals. This plant is hermaphrodite. The flowers are abundant and durable almost all the year. The stem and the branches have small spines which the plant uses in order to hold the surfaces for climb. Its roots are very sensible.

This genere has some species like B.glabra, B.buttiana, B.peruviana and B.spectabilis. Although currently there are several hybrids and varieties the most frequent species are Bougainvillea glabra and Bougainvillea spectabilis.
Bougainvillea glabra has lanceolate, glossy, hairless and soft green leaves, and magenta bracts. It is very frequent as a bonsai form.
Bougainvillea spectabilis has oval, hairy and matt green leaves, and the bracts can be purple, pink, red, yellow, white and beige.

The most frequent plague that attacks to Bougainvillea are cochineal, white fly and red spider. And there are some diseases like the powdery mildew and chlorosis.
The Bougainvillea is an easy plant to cultivate, if you want to cultivate one follow this link.
Here there is a chart with several ornamental uses of Bougainvillea.

¿Why have I chosen this plant?
Bougainvillea has been a plant that although I see it everyday ,I am struck by it since I was a child. It seems to me a special plant maybe because it keeps in flower all year long, maybe because of its characteristic "petals", maybe because it can grow up on an abandoned gardens...or maybe beecause it is a whole of all...