Butterfly Bush

Buddleja davidii Franch.

BUD-lee-ah dah-VID-ee-eye

Buddlejaceae

Explanation of name: Commemorates Adam Buddle, 1660-1715, who was a rector in Essex, England, and Armand David, 1826-1900, a French naturalist, missionary, and priest (FER).

Natural range: China

Recognition: Buddlejas are usually small shrubs having usually opposite leaves fuzzy beneath, and variably colored flowers with 4 corolla lobes in usually tilted or dangling spikelike inflorescences made up of congested thyrses.  The flowers are classic butterfly flowers shaped like (bent) inverted witch’s hats with a short, narrow peak, and a rim.

                Multiple species of Buddleja are in cultivation. Buddleja davidii (leaves densely fuzzy beneath, the flowers fundamentally lilac with an orange eye, but with many color variants of this and related species) is probably the most common and is featured in the Plant Finder. WU1 lists Buddleja lindleyana Fortune ex Lindl. (with the leaf undersurfaces only slightly fuzzy, flowers purple) and B. madagascariensis Lam. (with orange flowers) both as rare escapes from cultivation in Florida WU2 adds Buddleja indica Lam. as escaped in Palm Beach County. This weedy species has yellow flowers.

Landscape uses: Small colorful shrubs, favorites with butterfly gardeners. These shrubs are fond of alkaline soils (PBCC). They are more temperate at heart than Palm Beach County, and the PBCC nursery staff finds them to suffer during late summer. They recover well from heavy pruning, flowering on the new growth.