Bougainvillia Lesson, 1830

Calder, Dale R., 2010, Some anthoathecate hydroids and limnopolyps (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) from the Hawaiian archipelago 2590, Zootaxa 2590 (1), pp. 1-91 : 21

Genus Bougainvillia Lesson, 1830

Bougainvillia Lesson, 1830: 118 .

Type species. Bougainvillia macloviana Lesson, 1830 , by monotypy.

Diagnosis. Bougainvilliid hydroids sometimes stolonal but usually erect and irregularly branched, arising from a creeping hydrorhiza. Erect colonies with monosiphonic or polysiphonic hydrocaulus. Perisarc filmy or firm, covering hydrorhiza, hydrocauli, hydrocladia, and pedicels, terminating near hydranth bases or forming a pseudohydrotheca, not enveloping bases of tentacles. Hydranths club-shaped to fusiform; tentacles filiform, amphicoronate, in a distal whorl; hypostome conical to dome-shaped.

Gonophores predominantly free medusae, exceptionally as eumedusoids, borne singly or in clusters on hydrocauli, hydrocladia, pedicels, or hydrorhiza. Medusae bell-shaped; manubrium short; oral tentacles four, perradial, usually branched dichotomously; radial canals four; tentacle bulbs four; marginal tentacles all filiform, clustered on tentacle bulbs; ocelli usually present; gonads on manubrium; medusa buds sometimes produced.

Remarks. Species of Bougainvillia Lesson, 1830 occur worldwide. Their hydroids can be difficult to identify, often resembling one another in colony form and varying in morphology under different environmental conditions ( Vannucci & Rees 1961). One species of the genus is known to occur in Hawaii.