Buddleja davidii 'BORDER BEAUTY' butterfly bush, buddleja

Buddleja

The genus Buddleja, commonly known as butterfly bush, is a botanically diverse and geographically wide-ranging group of woody plants comprising more than 140 species distributed across Asia, Africa and both Americas. Having evolved on four continents, it shows remarkable variability, from small shrubs barely exceeding a metre in height to trees approaching thirty metres. Although now placed in the family Scrophulariaceae, its taxonomic history is complex – in the past it was assigned to Loganiaceae and even to its own family, Buddlejaceae, before modern systematics settled on the current concept. The genus was named by Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) in honour of the English botanist Adam Buddle (1662–1715), following the recommendation of the physician and plant collector William Houstoun (1695–1733), who sent the first specimens of Buddleja americana from the Caribbean to England roughly fifteen years after Buddle’s death. Its ability to attract winged insects, especially butterflies, earned it the name “butterfly bush” in many languages during the twentieth century. Although no species is native to Europe, Buddleja has become one of the most widely grown ornamental shrubs here. The species differ not only in appearance but also in pollination strategy: American forms often developed long red flowers adapted to hummingbirds, whereas Asian species attract almost solely insects for which they have an abundance of nectar throughout the summer.

Buddleja davidii, David’s butterfly bush, is today one of the best-known shrubs in the world. It originates from central China, particularly the provinces of Sichuan and Hubei, where it grows on rocky slopes, river deposits and limestone outcrops. It reached Europe at the end of the nineteenth century thanks to the collections of the French missionary and naturalist Père Armand David (1826–1900), after whom it is named. The first plants appeared in European gardens in the 1880s, when Dr Augustine Henry sent seed to St Petersburg around 1887, followed shortly afterwards by Jean-André Soulié, who supplied the French nursery Vilmorin. From there, Buddleja davidii spread across Europe within a few years and in England received the RHS Award of Garden Merit as early as 1898. It is an exceptionally adaptable species – rooting on riverbanks, in rubble, in cracks of masonry and on railway embankments. This ability to colonise disturbed ground made it a symbol of post-war urban regeneration, but also a plant that has become invasive in some countries. Its extremely light seed is carried long distances by the wind, which explains why the shrub appears even in places where it was never planted.