Buddleja lindleyana - Weeping Butterfly Bush

Weeping Butterfly Bush is a shrub or small tree with showy, long-lasting lavender or purple-violet flowers that attract pollinators. Leaf-stalks are 1-7 mm; leaf blade ovate to elliptic or narrowly so, 3-11 x 1-5 cm, membranous when dry, above hairless or sparsely velvet-hairy, base wedge-shaped, margin entire to coarsely sinuate-toothed, tip tapering, lateral veins 6-8 pairs and prominent. Flowers are borne at branch-ends, in spikes 4-20 x 2-4 cm; lower bracts leaflike, often linear, 1-10 mm. Sepal-cup is bell-shaped to urn-shaped, 2-4 mm; sepals broadly triangular, 0.2-1 x 0.5-1 mm. Flowers are purple, 1.3-2 cm; tube 1.1-1.7 cm, curved below middle, apically 2.5-4 mm in diameter, basally 1-1.5 mm wide, outside velvet-hairy; petals nearly round, 2-3.5 x 2-3 mm. This plant likes sun and prefers moist, well-drained soil but it tolerates a range of soil conditions. Its form is rounded with arching weeping branches and a medium to fine texture. It is more dense and compact than Buddleja davidii. Flowers appear on new growth. It spreads easily by suckers and can be weedy. Weeping Butterfly Bush is native to S. China, cultivated in NE India.