Buddleja brachiata is endemic to southern Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 from Goiás

Goiás

Goiás is a state of Brazil, located in the central part of the country. The name Goiás comes from the name of an indigenous community...

 to São Paolo, where it grows on disturbed areas along rivers. The species was first described and named by Chamisso

Adelbert von Chamisso

Adelbert von Chamisso was a German poet and botanist.- Life :He was born Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot at the château of Boncourt at Ante, in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family...

 & von Schlechtendal

Diederich Franz Leonhard von Schlechtendal

Diederich von Schlechtendal was a German botanist born in Xanten. He was Professor of Botany and Director of the Botanical Gardens at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg from 1833 until his death in 1866, and Editor of the botanical journal Linnaea.His most important work was in...

 in 1827.

Description

B. brachiata is a small, scandent 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 with light-brown finely striated bark. The branches are subquadrangular, the youngest growth tomentulose

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...

. The leaves are subsessile

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...

, ovate

Leaf shape

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

, 6 – 12 cm long by 3 – 6 cm wide, glabrous

Glabrousness

Glabrousness is the technical term for an anatomically atypical lack of hair, down, or similar structures...

 and tomentulose below. The white 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...

 is 10 – 20 cm long, comprising two orders of leafy-bracted

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...

 branches. The 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...

 flowers are borne in pairs of capitate cymule

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...

s, each 0.5 to 0.7 cm in diameter, and comprising 3 - 9 flowers. The corolla is campanula

Campanula

Campanula is one of several genera in the family Campanulaceae with the common name bellflower. It takes its name from their bell-shaped flowers—campanula is Latin for "little bell"....

te, 2 – 3 mm long.

The inflorescences of the species suggest a close relationship with B.hieronymi

Buddleja hieronymi

Buddleja hieronymi is a species endemic to southern Bolivia and northern Argentina first described and named by Fries in 1905. -Description:B. hieronymi is a dioecious shrub 1 - 1.5 m high with greyish rimose bark...

, B. interrupta

Buddleja interrupta

Buddleja interrupta is a species endemic to the dry valleys and roadsides of northern Peru at altitudes Buddleja interrupta is a species endemic to the dry valleys and roadsides of northern Peru at altitudes...

, and B. iresinoides

Buddleja iresinoides

Buddleja iresinoides is a species endemic to the rocky hillsides and stream banks of Bolivia and northern Argentina at altitudes from 300 to 1500 m. The species was correctly identified as a Buddleja and named by Hosseus in 1924.-Description:...

, found in the Andes

Andes

The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...

, its occurrence in Brazil probably owing to the much drier conditions prevalent in the Amazon

Amazon Basin

The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...

 region during the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

period.