Lindley's Butterflybush

Cultivated as an ornamental shrub.

Cultivated, medicinal, poisonous.

Erect shrub. Branchlets bluntly 4-angled. Leaves sub-sessile, 6-13 cm long, elliptic to lanceolate, acute to acuminate, serrulate, glabrous above, stellate-pubescent beneath; stipules interpetiolar, irregularly lobed. Flowers sessile, purple, in many-flowered clusters forming an erect spike, 10-20 cm long; bract linear, 2 mm long, pubescent. Calyx 3 mm long, lobes 4, ovate, acuminate. Corolla tube 8 mm long, curved, glabrous. Stamens 4, attached inside the corolla tube; anthers sessile. Ovary oblong, 1 mm long; style 1 mm; stigma oblong-ovate.

Shrubs 1--3 m tall; young branchlets, leaves abaxially, petioles, and inflorescences densely rusty pubescent with stellate and/or glandular hairs. Stems brown, branchlets quadrangular to subquadrangular. Stipules absent. Petiole 1--7 mm; leaf blade ovate to elliptic or narrowly so, 3--11 X 1--5 cm, membranous when dry, adaxially glabrous or sparsely pubescent, base cuneate, margin entire to coarsely sinuate-dentate, apex acuminate, lateral veins 6--8 pairs and conspicuous. Inflorescences terminal, spicate cymes, 4--20 X 2--4 cm; lower bracts leafy, often linear, 1--10 mm. Calyx campanulate to urceolate, 2--4 mm; lobes broadly triangular, 0.2--1 X 0.5--1 mm, outside densely pubescent with glandular and often also with some stellate hairs. Corolla purple, 1.3--2 cm; tube 1.1--1.7 cm, curved below middle, apically 2.5--4 mm in diam., basally 1--1.5 mm wide, outside pubescent with glandular and often also with some stellate hairs; lobes suborbicular, 2--3.5 X 2--3 mm. Stamens inserted at or near base of corolla tube; anthers oblong to ovate. Pistil glabrous. Ovary ovoid, 1.5--2.2 mm. Stigma clavate. Capsules ellipsoid, 4--6 X 1.5--2 mm, glandular-pubescent or less often glabrous. Seeds pale brown, obliquely tetrahedral, narrowly winged at edges. Fl. Apr-Oct, fr. Apr of following year.

Anhui, Fujian. Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.

Fl. Per.: July-August.

* Mountains beside trails, scrub by streams, forest edges; 200-2700 m.

Adenoplea lindleyana (Fortune) Small; Buddleja lindleyana var. sinuatodentata Hemsley.