Bougainvillea spectabilis Willd.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘Many have heard of the beauty of the inflorescence of this subscandent, large shrub or tree, but few have been privileged to see it.  It has been reported (see Paxton, 1. c. [MB p.51/1845]) to have flowered for ten years in succession in the border of a stove trained against a back wall in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris.  At length (for the first time, we believe, in England), in 1844, it flowered in the large tropical conservatory at Chatsworth.  In June of the present year, Mrs. George Marryat, of Clinton Glen, Christchurch, Hants, obligingly communicated to us the specimen here figured, from the vinery of Mrs. West, in that neighbourhood, where it blossomed when five years old, “in a vinery where grapes are ripened without fire, trained in a fan-shaped manner against the back wall, the roots confined in a comparatively small pot.”  It will be seen by our figure that the charm of this plant is not in the flowers themselves, which have no beauty to recommend them, but in the large bracteas or floral leaves, which in our living plant are of a full and bright rose-colour, and, as the branches are literally loaded with them, the effect must be very striking.  In respect of colour however, I suspect these bracteas are exceedingly variable.  In Paxton’s plant they are deep purple: so green in one variety, that M. Choisy has constituted of it a species (B. virescens), mainly depending on that circumstance.  In some of our specimens they are brick-red.  Mr. Tweedie, in a note accompanying his specimens, says, “the trees seem all on fire with them.”  That all M. Choisy’s new species are trifling varieties I am satisfied, and indeed I have authority for them in my own Herbarium.  His B. virescens is merely a variety with greenish bracteas (a peculiarity perhaps due to the plant being much shaded); and indeed Martius’ specimen, n. 64 in my Herbarium, quoted by Choisy under B. spectabilis, is this variety, as well as Mrs. Graham’s specimen, rightly referred to in my Herbarium as B. virescens. Mr. Gardener’s n. 5139 (B. glabra, Chois.) is simply a nearly glabrous state of spectabilis. Blanchet’s n. 2573 (B. pomacea) is a specimen of spectabilis, with smallish leaves, and flowers and bracteas not quite developed.’  [BM t.4811/1854].

Bougainvillea spectabilis was introduced to Britain from Peru in 1829.  [MB p.51/1845].  As B. splendens it was introduced to Britain in 1848.  [JD].

History at Camden Park

As Bougainvillea spectabilis it was listed in all published catalogues [T.171/1843].  Bougainvillea splendens is only listed in the 1857 catalogue [T.172/1857].  

William Macarthur writes of B. spectabilis: ‘at Paris, in 1855-57, I made aquaintance with the very intelligent gardener who had charge of the large houses at the Jardin des Plantes, which contain the Palms and hard wooded plants.  He pointed out to me a distinct species of Bougainvillea, which he said was the true B. spectabilis, and that it produced blossoms still more brilliant than the better known species; more approaching vermillion in colour, and, he added, much more beautiful. [   ] Through the kindness of Prof. Decaisne I obtained a plant of this species to bring hither, which I succeeded in doing upwards of  two years since.  I found however that either the same, or another species very like it, had already been introduced from whence.’  [Gard. Chron. 1860]. 

A plant of Bougainvillea spectabilis was presented to the Sydney Botanic Garden by William Macarthur on December 24th 1845 and again on September 15th 1847 [RBGS AB].

Notes

In at least some copies of volume 80 of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine the figure is numbered 4810 and the text 4811.