Buddleja davidii Franch.
Butterfly bush, orange eye butterflybush
Butterfly bush is native to the Sichuan and Hubei provinces in central China, and has become a popular ornamental plant in North America. Butterflies find it irresistable. It has become naturalized in North America.
Plants: This shrub can reach 6–13′ (1.8–4 m) in height, and can reach 15′ (4.6 m) around. It has arching stems.
Leaves: Opposite, lanceolate, gray-green, finely toothed, 2½–8″ (7–20 cm) long. Young leaves have fine hairs beneath.
Flowers: Spectacular roughly conical panicles at branch tips are up to 8–18″ (20–45 cm) in length, with numerous tiny purple tubular flowers with orange centers. (Other color combinations have been cultivated as well, including lilac, dark purple, pinks, yellows, whites, reds, and almost black.) They appear from June to September.
Fruits: Each flower becomes a 2-valued seed capsule containing about 50 seeds.
Habitats: Thickets on mountain slopes, limestone outcrops, forest clearings and rocky stream banks.
Online References:
7/23/2017 · Pine Grove Furnace State Park, Pennsylvania · ≈ 10 × 6″ (24 × 16 cm) 
7/24/2010 · Acton Arboretum, Acton, Massachusetts · ≈ 11 × 7″ (27 × 18 cm) 
7/2/2010 · Susan and Raimond’s, Phoenix, Maryland 
7/23/2017 · Pine Grove Furnace State Park, Pennsylvania · ≈ 7 × 5″ (18 × 13 cm) 
7/24/2010 · Acton Arboretum, Acton, Massachusetts · ≈ 5 × 3½″ (13 × 9.2 cm) 
7/23/2017 · Pine Grove Furnace State Park, Pennsylvania · ≈ 8 × 5″ (20 × 13 cm) 
7/23/2017 · Pine Grove Furnace State Park, Pennsylvania · ≈ 8 × 5″ (20 × 13 cm) 
7/24/2010 · Acton Arboretum, Acton, Massachusetts · ≈ 9 × 6″ (23 × 15 cm) 
7/24/2010 · Acton Arboretum, Acton, Massachusetts · ≈ 11 × 7″ (27 × 18 cm) 
9/27/2013 · Gordon and Kathy’s, Prospect, Maine · ≈ 8 × 6″ (20 × 15 cm) 
9/27/2013 · Gordon and Kathy’s, Prospect, Maine · ≈ 11 × 7″ (28 × 18 cm) 
| Kingdom | Plantae | Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin) |
| Subkingdom | Tracheobionta | Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients |
| Division | Magnoliophyta | Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms |
| Class | Magnoliopsida | Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves |
| Subclass | Asteridae | A large class that encompasses asters |
| Order | Lamiales | Aromatic herbs and shrubs, including lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, ash, teak, snapdragon, sesame, psyllium, garden sage, mint, basil, and rosemary |
| Family | Scrophulariaceae | The figwort family (named for the resemblence of root nodes of some species to tubercular human lymph nodes, or scrophula) |
| Genus | Buddleja | After the Reverend Adam Buddle (1660/1662-1715), an English botanist, this genus was originally in the Logania family, Loganiaceae, but has been placed by Jepson in a family of its own, the Buddlejaceae |
| Species | davidii | For Armand David, French missionary and explorer in China who first reported the shrub |
Buddleja davidii description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.
© FloraFinder.org. All rights reserved.