Bougainvillea

In Malaysia, the bougainvillea is also called bunga kertas, malay for "paper flower". And they do look like very bits of very thin paper, don't they?

I remember the bougainvillea being everywhere when I was growing up in Malaysia in the 1970s. People would plant bougainvillea of various colours -- pink, white, orange, yellow, purple, red, etc. -- in flower pots, and line them up in front of their homes.

Today, they're not as popular, at least not in Malaysia or Singapore, where greens and palms are thought to give a more modern look to a landscape design. So it was really wonderful for me to notice some planted on a couple of overhead bridges near my current home in Singapore. They're perfect there -- adding a bright profusion of purple to what is otherwise an ugly concrete structure.

DID YOU KNOW?
#1 The actual flower of the bougainvillea is tiny and white, and surrounded by 'bracts' (the paper-like colourful parts we usually think of as the flower).

#2 The bougainvillea is named after Louis Antoine de Bougainville, an admiral in the French Navy who "discovered" it in the 18th Century.