Bougainvillea

Today I finally delved into some much-overdue photo management.  I'm not sure how many of you are mac users, but I always struggle with iPhoto.  It's fantastically convenient for uploading photos to the computer from your phone, but I can't quite seem to find a good system for organizing them.  I was getting lazy about placing pics in the right folder and too often the folder name just wasn't generic enough.  Today I threw out all my albums and resorted from scratch.  I used only the following labels: people, places, plants, projects.  

This pic below went into three of those folders.  This is a cultivar of Bougainvillea growing at a plant nursery in Waimanalo, Oahu.  I was photographing it to discuss its use on the project in Hawaii.  (Places, projects, plants).  

When I returned from Hawaii after my most recent August site visit I had every intention of *immediately* blogging about Bougainvillea.  Primarily because it was one of the first plants that had every caused me actual physical harm.  You see, depending on the variety, Bougainvillea can have modest or horrifyingly big thorns.  One of the plants I was handling was of the latter category.  My right index finger got pierced pretty badly by one of the thorns my last day on the site.  At the time, it just felt like a splinter, nothing to worry about.  But the next day I called Honolulu poison control, after waking with a finger that was swollen to about twice its usual size!  I was told to take some benadryl and see if it got better as the day progressed.  I did just that, and tried to ignore the horror stories I had stupidly read online. 

I am happy to say that my finger is just fine - it seemed to get back to normal after about two days.  And despite this medical hiccup, I am still a fan of the plant.  Bougainvilleas were discovered Brazil in the late 18th Century during a voyage captained by Louis Antoine de Bougaiville.  Their hardy habit and their ability to mutate quite easily has led this plant to be a popular favorite in any tropical or warm-Mediterranean climate.  The flowers are generally pink, red or purple, though white hues exist as well.  The pic above was taken at the nursery so the various designers on my Hawaii project could confer on the best shade of pinkish-red for the site in question.

You notice above that the showy part of the flower - the papery pink "petals" are actually bracts.  The true flower is small and white.