Genus Bougainvillia Lesson, 1830

Synonymy: See Schuchert (2007).

Diagnosis: Medusa with four perradial marginal bulbs bearing two or more identical tentacles, bulbs with or without ocelli; four perradial oral tentacles, usually branched and ending in nematocyst clusters; gonads interradial or adradial on manubrium, sometimes also along basal perradial extensions of the manubrium.

Hydroid colony stolonal or branched, more rarely hydranths sessile; perisarc terminating at base of hydranth or extending onto hydranth as pseudohydrotheca; hydranth cylindrical to spindleshaped, tentacles in one or two closely approximated whorls, tentacle-bases never enveloped by pseudohydrotheca, tentacles alternately inclined up- and downward (amphicoronate). Gonophores develop into free medusae, arising singly or in clusters from stem, branches or stolons.