Buddleja davidiiFranch.

Butterfly bush

WFO wfo-0000574004 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Buddleja davidii, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. a Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-02 / obs. 204043651
Buddleja davidii, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. b Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203966647
Buddleja davidii, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. c Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204027539
Buddleja davidii, photographed by Stephen James McWilliam
fig. d Stephen James McWilliam, CC0 1.0 / obs. 201824853
Buddleja davidii, photographed by Joshua
fig. e Joshua, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202220322
Buddleja davidii, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. f Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202492029
Buddleja davidii, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. g Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202492111
Buddleja davidii, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. h Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202492464

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 4,019 observations

Peak flowering in Aug, from 4,019 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 25 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Buddleja davidii var. alba Rehder & E.H.Wilson
  • Buddleja davidii var. glabrescens Gagnep.
  • Buddleja davidii var. magnifera (E.H.Wilson) Rehder & E.H.Wilson
  • Buddleja davidii var. nanhoensis (Chitt.) Rehder
  • Buddleja davidii var. superba (de Corte) Rehder & E.H.Wilson
  • Buddleja davidii var. veitchiana (H.J.Veitch) Rehder
  • Buddleja davidii var. wilsonii (E.H.Wilson) Rehder & E.H.Wilson
  • Buddleja delavayi var. tomentosa H.F.Comber
  • Buddleja heliophila var. adenophora Hand.-Mazz.
  • Buddleja shaanxiensis Z.Y.Zhang
  • Buddleja shimidzuana Nakai
  • Buddleja striata Z.Y.Zhang
  • Buddleja striata Zhi Y.Zhang
  • Buddleja striata var. zhouquensis Z.Y.Zhang
  • Buddleja variabilis Hemsl.
  • Buddleja variabilis var. magnifica E.H.Wilson
  • Buddleja variabilis var. nanhoensis Chitt.
  • Buddleja variabilis var. prostrata C.K.Schneid.
  • Buddleja variabilis var. superba de Corte
  • Buddleja variabilis var. superba H.J.Veitch
  • Buddleja variabilis var. veitchiana H.J.Veitch
  • Buddleja variabilis var. veitchiana Veitch
  • Buddleja variabilis var. wilsonii E.H.Wilson
  • Buddleja variabilis var. wilsonii Bean

and 1 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.