Crape myrtle

Description:

Lagerstroemia indica is an often multistemmed, deciduous tree with a wide spreading, flat topped, open habit when mature. The bark is a prominent feature being smooth, pinkinsh-gray and mottled, shedding each year. Leaves are small and dark green changing to yellow and orange in autumn. Flowers are white, pink, mauve, purple or carmine with crimped petals, in panicles up to 9cm. Lagerstroemia indica is frost tolerant, prefers full sun and will grow to 6 metres with a spread of 6 metres. Many hybrid cultivars have been developed between L. indica and L. faueri

Habitat:

The common crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) from China and Korea, was introduced circa 1790 to Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States by the French botanist André Michaux. In the wild, the species is most often found as a multistemmed large shrub, but two hundred years of cultivation has resulted in a huge number of cultivars of widely varying characteristics. Today, crape myrtles varieties can fill every landscape need, from tidy street trees to dense barrier hedges all the way down to fast-growing dwarf types of less than two feet, which can go from seed to bloom in a season (allowing gardeners in places where the plant is not winter-hardy to still enjoy the intense colors of the frilly flowers). In Europe, crape myrtle is common in the south of France, the Iberian Peninsula and all of Italy; in the United States it can be seen anywhere south of USDA Zone 6, doing best and avoiding fungal diseases in mild climates that are not overly humid, such as inland California and Texas.