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Buddleja
Also called Butterfly Bushes, Butterflybush, Sagewoods, Butterfly Bushes And Allies
Buddleja is a genus of over 140 species of shrubs and small trees, best known through the butterfly bush (B. davidii) and its hybrids, which are widely grown as garden shrubs. Grow them in full sun with well-drained soil, and expect strong growth and frequent flowering in warm seasons.
Buddleja (; orth. var. Buddleia; also historically given as Buddlea) is a genus comprising over 140 species of flowering plants endemic to Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The generic name bestowed by Linnaeus posthumously honoured Adam Buddle (1662–1715), an English botanist and rector, at the suggestion of William Houstoun. Houstoun sent the first plants to become known to science as buddleja (B. americana) to England from the Caribbean about 15 years after Buddle's death. Buddleja species, especially Buddleja davidii and interspecific hybrids, are commonly known as butterfly bushes and are frequently cultivated as garden shrubs. Buddleja davidii has become an invasive species in both Europe and North America.
As garden shrubs, buddlejas are essentially 20th-century plants, with the exception of B. globosa which was introduced to Britain from southern Chile in 1774 and disseminated from the nursery of Lee and Kennedy, Hammersmith. Several species such as Buddleja davidii are popular garden plants and are commonly known as "butterfly bushes", owing to their attractiveness to butterflies, and have become staples of the modern butterfly garden; they are also attractive to bees and moths.
The most popular cultivated species is Buddleja davidii from central China, named for the French Basque missionary and naturalist Père Armand David. Other common garden species include the aforementioned B. globosa, grown for its strongly honey-scented orange globular inflorescences, and the weeping Buddleja alternifolia. Several interspecific hybrids have been made, notably B. 'Lochinch' (B. davidii × B. fallowiana) and B. × weyeriana (B. globosa × B. davidii), the latter a cross between a South American and an Asiatic species.
The genus is found in four continents. Over 60 species are native through the American continent from the southern United States to southern Chile, while many other species are found in Africa, and parts of Asia, but all are absent as natives from Europe and Australasia. The species are divided into three groups based on their floral type: those in the American continent are mostly dioecious (occasionally hermaphrodite or trioecious), while those in the African and in the Asian continent are exclusively hermaphrodite with perfect flowers.
Fountain butterflybush · Dogtail · Buddleja cordata · Butterfly-bush · Buddleja dysophylla · Buddleja fallowiana var. alba · Buddleja fallowiana · Orange-ball-tree · Smokebush · Pole butterflybush · Squarestem butterflybush
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Buddleja by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
