Buddleja saligna Willd.

Shrub or small tree, 1–12 m; much-branched bushy habit. Branchlets terete or quadrangular with four narrow ridges or wings. Leaves evergreen, opposite and shortly petiolate, petiole glabrescent; leaf blade subcoriaceous, narrowly elliptic to linear, variable in size and shape 4–12 × as long as wide, 1.2–15 cm long; acute, accuminate or less often rounded at the apex; cuneate at the base or decurrent into the petiole. Upper surface lepidote-scaly, turning glabrous; underside much paler and densely grey- or tawny-pubescent with stellate hairs; venation reticulate and impressed above and prominent beneath. Inflorescence terminal and often also in axils of leaves; paniculate, large and many flowered. Flowers subsessile, in 3-flowered cymes and sweetly scented. Calyx often subtended by small linear bracts, outside densely lepidote-scaly. Corolla white or cream, with a short cup-shaped tube, 0.5–1.2 cm long, included in the calyx, outside glabrous, inside pilose; lobes 1.2–2.5 × as long as the corolla tube, suborbicular or elliptic, 1–1.8 × 0.8–1.2 mm. Stamens well exserted, filaments 1–2.5 mm long, inserted at or just below the mouth of corolla tube; anthers suborbicular, 0.3–0.4 mm long. Pistil densely lepidote-scaly all over, 1–2 mm long, ovary ovoid or nearly ovoid, sometimes laterally compressed abruptly narrowed to the style; style with capitate stigma about as long as the ovary. Capsule oblong, often laterally compressed, sparely lepidote-scaly. Seeds brown, tetrahedral or nearly fusiform, obscurely winged or unwinged and minutely reticulate. (Leeuwenberg 1979).

Distribution  Lesotho South Africa Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, North West, Western Cape Zimbabwe

Habitat Slopes of high mountains, 1600–2700 m, among boulders along water courses and in damp gullies; dry hillsides, mixed scrub and forest margins.

USDA Hardiness Zone 8-9

RHS Hardiness Rating H4

Conservation status Least concern (LC)