Buddleja araucana
Encyclopedia
Buddleja araucana is endemic to the semi-deserts and steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...

s of Patagonia
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

, from southern Mendoza
Mendoza Province
The Province of Mendoza is a province of Argentina, located in the western central part of the country in the Cuyo region. It borders to the north with San Juan, the south with La Pampa and Neuquén, the east with San Luis, and to the west with the republic of Chile; the international limit is...

 to Río Negro and Neuquen
Neuquén, Argentina
-Sister cities:Neuquén is sister city, as designated by Sister Cities International with: Knoxville, Tennessee, United States Treviso, Veneto, Italy Valdivia, Chile-External links: - Official website....

 provinces in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, and adjacent Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

. The species was first described and named by Philippi
Rodolfo Amando Philippi
Rodolfo Amando Philippi was a German-Chilean paleontologist and zoologist....

 in 1873.

Description

B. araucana is a dioecious
Dioecious
Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

 shrub, 1 – 3 m tall, with grey fissured bark. The young branches are terete and tomentose
Tomentose
Tomentose is a term used to describe plant hairs that are flattened and matted, forming a woolly coating known as tomentum. Often the hairs are silver or gray-colored...

, bearing sessile
Sessility (botany)
In botany, sessility is a characteristic of plants whose flowers or leaves are borne directly from the stem or peduncle, and thus lack a petiole or pedicel...

 coriaceous leaves linear to lanceolate
Leaf shape
In botany, leaf shape is characterised with the following terms :* Acicular : Slender and pointed, needle-like* Acuminate : Tapering to a long point...

 tomentose on both sides, 3 – 9 cm long by 0.8 - 1.8 cm wide. The pale orange inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

 comprises one terminal head and one to four pedunculate globose heads in the axils of the progressively smaller leaves; the heads are 1 – 2 cm in diameter and contain 25 - 45 flowers, the corollas 4 – 5 mm long.

Cultivation

The shrub has been introduced to the UK, where it survives at Kew and as part of the NCCPG National Collection at Longstock Park
Longstock Park
Longstock Park is a country estate in the civil parish of Longstock in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. Formerly Longstock Manor, of medieval origins, it was purchased by Sir Joshua East in the nineteenth century. On his death, the estate passed to his sons Alfred and Arthur. In...

 Nursery, still known by its old taxon B. nappii.

Suppliers

B. araucana is in commerce in the UK under the old taxon B. nappii; vendors can be found in the RHS
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...

Plantfinder http://apps.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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