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Buddleja colvilei
Encyclopedia
Buddleja colvilei is endemic to the eastern Himalaya. Discovered by Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
in 1849, he described it as 'the handsomest of all Himalayan shrubs'
Description
B. colvilei is a deciduousDeciduous
Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...
large shrub or small tree which can grow > 13 m, often single stemmed. The flowers are arranged in drooping panicles, 15 - 20 cm long by > 8cm wide, rose or crimson, but white within the corolla. The flowers are among the largest of any in the genus, and appear in June. The leaves are < 25 cm long, narrow, shallowly - toothed, and tapered at either end .
Cultivation
The shrub is not entirely hardy in the UK, and can only be reliably grown outdoors along the Atlantic coastAtlantic Coast
The Atlantic Coast is any coast fronting the Atlantic Ocean. The term differentiates the coasts of countries or continents with coastlines on more than one body of water, such as North America, South America, Africa and Europe.-See also:*Indian Ocean...
.
Suppliers
UK nurseries stocking the plant can be found in the RHS Plantfinderhttp://apps.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/plantfinder2.asp?crit=buddleja&Genus=Buddleja.