Familiar Indian Flowers: with Coloured Plates/Bougainvillia Glabra

NOTWITHSTANDING the many familiar flowers we have already noticed, there will hardly be one better known or admired than the one now before us.

It is so associated with Indian horticulture, and is such an ornament to almost every garden, that no work of this kind would be complete without it.

There are three varieties of this peculiar and lovely shrub, but the one in the illustration is decidedly the most desirable to have in a garden, as it is in constant blossom.

“Bougainvillia Spectabilis” only flowers in February and March.

The appearance of these shrubs is dull and heavy, so far as the foliage is concerned, for they are a dark blue-green, rather hairy and very numerous.

At first sight the bush looks as if covered with a mass of magenta leaves, but on close inspection this proves to be a mistake.

The flowers themselves are smal] and of a pale yellow colour, and the brilliant magenta that is the ornament of the bush is from the bracteal leaves which envelop the flowers, fur there are generally more than one growing out of the same stalk.

When in full blossom the beauty of the bush can well be imagined, affording, as it does, a perfect blaze of colour set off by the dark green leaves.

These plants are very easily propagated by cuttings, either in sand or light mould, but making layers is equally successful,

There is no perceptible difference between the varieties when they are in blossom, as they are all then handsome attractive bushes.

It has often been remarked that Indian flowers are of a more gaudy and resplendent colouring than those English ones, and the specimen before us bears out this idea.

The brilliiancy and vividness of the colours must be very striking to those who have not been long in the country.

All the varieties of this plant are very common in India, and may be seen in nearly every garden, where they grow in great luxuriance, especially in Calcutta.

From the plate it will be seen that the flower is a small yellow star at the end of a long narrow tube. One of the distinguishing features of this specimen is that it has thorns all up the stems.

There is no seed to be obtained from these plants that I am aware of; the flowers drop off without forming any.

This particular kind was known only in the Calcutta Horticultural Gardens until quite lately, but the other varieties are common all over India.

It grows well in any soil, but whether indigenous to India or not has never been ascertained,

It possesses no medicinal properties. ​