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Buddleja davidii
Also called Orange-eyed butterfly-bush, Orange eye butterflybush, Summer Lilac, Orange Eye, Orange Eye Butterfly Bush, Buddleia, Chinese Sagewood
In Singapore: Purple Butterfly Bush, Butterfly Bush, Summer Lilac, Buddleia, Orange-Eyed Butterfly Bush, 大叶醉鱼草 (Grown in Singapore)
Butterfly-bush is a fast-growing, arching shrub with fragrant lilac-purple flower panicles that attract butterflies. Grow it in full sun and hard-prune it in spring for the most flowers.
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.
Buddleja davidii cultivars are widely cultivated worldwide as ornamental shrubs and for the value of their flowers as a nectar source for many species of butterfly. However, the plant does not provide food for butterfly larvae, and buddlejas might out-compete the host plants that caterpillars require.
The species and its cultivars are not able to survive the harsh winters of northern or montane climates, being killed by temperatures below about −15 to −20 °C (5 to −4 °F).
Fountain butterflybush · Dogtail · Buddleja cordata · Buddleja dysophylla · Buddleja fallowiana var. alba · Buddleja fallowiana · Orange-ball-tree · Smokebush · Pole butterflybush · Squarestem butterflybush · Butterfly Bush
[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 davidii 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
