Butterfly Bush

The Butterfly Bush or buddleia is appropriately named as it is a good source of nectar for butterflies.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Buddleja davidii
Family: 
Figworts
Family Latin name: 
SCROPHULARIACEAE
Category: 
Flowering Plants

Species description

Species description

This escaped garden plant needs no introduction as it is now as common throughout the countryside as it is in the cemetery. It is, however, a good nectar source for butterflies.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)

Details

Species family information

This is a varied cosmopolitan family, whose members were thought to cure scrofula, a gangrenous tubercular condition of the lymph glands, also known as the 'king's evil'. It was held that the monarch could cure it by his touch. Edward the Confessor was the earliest king known to have touched sufferers, and the last was Queen Anne, who touched the two-year-old Samuel Johnson in 1712.

Category information

Nucleic multicellular photosynthetic organisms lived in freshwater communities on land as long ago as a thousand million years, and their terrestrial descendants are known from the late Pre-Cambrian 850 million years ago. Embryophyte land plants are known from the mid Ordovician, and land plant structures such as roots and leaves are recognisable in mid Devonian fossils. Seeds seem to have evolved by the late Devonian. The Embryophytes are green land plants that form the bulk of the Earth’s vegetation. They have specialised reproductive organs and nurture the young embryo sporophyte. Most obtain their energy by photosynthesis, using sunlight to synthesise food from Carbon Dioxide and Water.

The earliest known plant group is the Archaeplastida, which were autotrophic. Listing just the surviving descendants, which evolved in turn, we have the Red Algae, the Chlorophyte Green Algae, the Charophyte Green Algae, and then the Embryophyta or land plants. The earliest embryophytes were the Liverworts, followed by the Hornworts, and the Mosses. Then we have the Vascular Plants, the Lycophytes and Ferns, followed by the Spermatophytes or seed plants, the Gnetophytes, Conifers, Ginkgos, and Cycads, and finally the Magnoliophyta (Angiosperms) or flowering plants.