Buddleja

Buddleja is a genus of erect to sprawling, bushy or scrambling shrubs, occasionally trees in the family Buddlejaceae. The name honours an English botanist, Adam Buddle, the Buddleja spelling consistent with the original naming of the genus. The hairs upon these plants are often minutely scaly or split into a branched star-shape.

The simple leaves are stalked and mostly opposite, sometimes subopposite and often lanceolate in shape. There are variably sized stipules at the petiole bases, sometimes reduced to ridges between the petioles.

Masses of scented flowers grow at stem-tips or from leaf axils in many-flowered, cyme-shaped panicles or rounded heads with two small bracts on each pedicel. The bisexual flowers of many colours have four-lobed calyces that are hairy on the outside only, four-lobed corollas and four stamens attached to the corolla throat. The corolla tube is cylindrical or bell-shaped with recurved lobes and sometimes bearded in the throat. The hairy, superior ovary has two locules.

The small fruit capsules are variously shaped, sometimes two-lobed, exserted from the persistent calyces and dehiscent at their tips. A capsule contains numerous small seeds. The oblong and compressed seed has an attached endosperm.

There are about 100 species, mostly found in warmer areas of Africa, Asia and the Americas. Only seven species grow naturally in southern Africa. Several species, including some of the southern African ones, feature in horticulture.

The plant in the photo is Buddleja saligna (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Coates Palgrave, 2002; Pooley, 1993; Wikipedia).