They usually take longer time to form the woody tissues and Thimma is the representative cultivar. They are slower in growing, required extra attention as they are more prone to leaf spot. However, their variegation is more impressive, ranging from few gold or cream spots and streaks to large irregular patches of green and gold. They are harder to propagate by cutting and thus usually sold for higher price. Tiger , Queen Marble , Strawberry , Red September etc are some of the representative cultivars of this group of cultivar in Malaysia.
Customers are always astounded when looking at their leaves.
However, this group of cultivar usually have limited colour range, for example some variegated plants would only have red colour bracts. There is another group of variegated cultivar called Dipline in Malaysia which we have stopped planting. It is only by close examination that such slight variegation can be noticed, as the variegation will become less distinct when leaves age. Thence, by looking from far, this group of bougainvillea is all green-leaf type. They are slower to develop because they have yellow veins, yellow thorns, yellow leaf stalks and yellow leaf stems.