Buddleja davidii (spelling variant Buddleia davidii), also called butterfly-bush, orange eye, or summer lilac, is a species of flowering plant in the family Scrophulariaceae, native to most of China except for the far northeast. It is widely used as an ornamental plant, and many named cultivars are in cultivation. The genus was named Buddleja after the English botanist, Reverend Adam Buddle. The species name, davidii, is after the French missionary and explorer in China, Father Armand David, who was the first European to report the shrub. It was found near Yichang by Dr Augustine Henry about 1887 and sent to St Petersburg. Another botanist-missionary in China, Jean-André Soulié, sent seed to the French nursery Vilmorin, and B. davidii entered commerce in the 1890s.
B. davidii was accorded the RHS Award of Merit (AM) in 1898, and the Award of Garden Merit (AGM) in 1941.
Description
Buddleja davidii is a vigorous shrub with an arching habit, growing to 5 m (16 ft) in height. The pale grey-brown bark becomes flaky to deeply fissured with age. The branches are quadrangular in section, the younger shoots and leaves covered in a dense indumentum. The opposite lanceolate leaves are 7–20 cm (3–8 inches) long and 2–7 cm (1–3 inches) broad, grey-green to dark green above, greyish-white tomentose beneath when young and becoming grey-green with age. The flowers are honey-scented, lilac to purple or occasionally white, produced in terminal panicles, usually under 20 cm (8 inches) long but can be 30 cm (12 inches) or more long. The flowers are perfect (having both male and female parts), hence are hermaphrodite rather than monoecious (separate male and female flowers on the same plant) as is often incorrectly stated. Ploidy 2n = 76 (tetraploid). The seeds are very small, and wind-dispersed.
Taxonomy
In a 1979 revision of the taxonomy of the African and Asian species of Buddleja, the Dutch botanist Anthonius Leeuwenberg sank the six varieties of the...
