Buddleja madagascariensis Lam.
Vernacular name: Madagascar Butterfly Bush, Orange Buddleja
Species Name: Buddleja madagascariensis Lam.
Family: Scrophulariaceae
Habit: Evergreen scandent shrub or woody climber.
Stem: Long arching to climbing branches; young stems densely tomentose, becoming woody and grey-brown with age.
Leaf: Opposite, elliptic to lanceolate, 5–15 × 2–6 cm, entire, dark green above, densely white-tomentose beneath, shortly petiolate.
Flowering: Winter–spring.
Flowers: Small, fragrant, bright orange to orange-yellow, borne in dense terminal and axillary panicles; corolla tubular, 4-lobed; stamens 4, epipetalous; ovary superior, bicarpellary.
Fruit: Ellipsoid septicidal capsule, many-seeded; seeds minute and winged.
Uses:
- Cultivated as an ornamental for its fragrant orange flowers and attractiveness to butterflies and other pollinators. Commonly used for covering fences, trellises, and embankments. In some regions it has escaped cultivation and become invasive.
- Leaf extract is used to treat diarrhea, dysentery, bronchitis, cough and asthma,
- Leaves were used as soap in some regions.
- Flower is used to dye cloth.
