If you are looking for a strikingly beautiful flowering plant that loves our hot and dry summers, look no further than bougainvillea.

This pretty plant, known for its wide variety of bright colors, was discovered in South America by Philibert Commercon, a botanist accompanying French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville during his 1768 trip about the world.

Like the poinsettia, it is the showy leaf-like bracts surrounding the plant’s inconspicuous white flowers that give bougainvillea its...