blue butterfly bush, blue glorybower

Description:

Blue butterfly bush is an open and sprawling evergreen shrub that gets up to 10 ft (3 m) tall and wide, but is easily kept much smaller. It has opposite leaves that are egg shaped, strongly toothed and about 3-4 in (7.6-10 cm) long. The inflorescences, borne at the ends of long arching branches, are panicles 4-10 in (10-25.4 cm) long composed of individual flowers about 1 in (2.5 cm) long, each with three pale blue lobes and one violet blue lobe. The flowers look like little butterflies in two different shades of blue and are produced more or less continuously throughout the summer and fall.

Habitat:

Blue butterfly bush occurs in Kenya and Uganda in East Africa.

Notes:

The genus name comes from the Greek: dendron, tree; and kleros, chance, a reference to the varied medicinal properties purported for some members of the genus. C. trichotomum, from China, has been shown to lower high blood pressure, and is prescribed in Chinese herbal medicine for a variety of ailments.