CSIR-NEERI Biodiversity Portal

TORCH GLOW Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea spectablis

Botanical name	: Bougainvillea spectablis .
Common Name	: 'Torch Glow'
Family	: Nyctaginaceae
About	: These bougainvilleas, 'Torch Glow' , are evergreen and it stands on its own amidst the many garden bougainvilleas due to its unique, upright, shrubby form. Bougainvilleas are technically lianas, tropical shrubs with reaching stems that grow into the treetops of their jungles of origin. Unusual, showy, shrubby grower boasts beautiful reddish-pink blooms atop upright branches. Wonderful accent shrub or screen when massed needs no support. Ordinary plants have fast-growing stems with widely spaced leaves. The leaves of 'Torch Glow' are tightly packed together on their branches, which are shortened, resulting in a compact habit, a true a true shrub for the landscape, very different from the massive vines of many bougainvilleas.. At the tips of its short branches, 'Torch Glow' blooms in bright red bracts densely packed among yellow green leaves. Bracts are modified leaves evolved to lure pollinators to the nearly insignificant true flowers nestled among them. These small, white tubular blooms are pollinated by hummingbirds.