This famous beauty, blazing with purple flowers, graces countless places with her spellbinding presence.
There is a bush in our bay that, like so many things on this island, has gone wild. The garden it grows from is abandoned, and so is she. She does not seem remotely bothered. Neglected Bougainvillea has flung, pulled, and stretched her long branches, thick with flowers, in every direction. She has cleared the fence, leaned over the road, knocked on the neighbour’s railing, and climbed high into the sky. For all her shaggy wildness, she remains a lady of irreplaceable elegance and style.
She is a favourite stop for countless buzzing visitors, whose vivid commotion turns up the intensity of her own display.
Walking past her is an event every time. I admire her all over again; she fascinates me and knocks me sideways with the enchanted shade of her dense lace. She looks as though she came from another planet, from some fantasy world. Something is always whispering, rustling, calling me to look, tugging at my attention and showing off its charm. Ah, she is a proper lady…
What does Madame Bougainvillea do to you?
