Buddleja

Buddleja, or Buddleia /ˈbʌdliːə/ (also historically given as Buddlea) commonly known as the butterfly bush is a genus comprising over 100 species of flowering plants endemic to Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The generic name bestowed by Linnaeus posthumously honoured the Reverend Adam Buddle (1662–1715), a botanist and rector in Essex, England, at the suggestion of Dr. William Houstoun. Houstoun sent the first plants to become known to science as buddleja (B. americana) to England from the Caribbean about 15 years after Buddle's death.

Nomenclature

The botanic name has been the source of some confusion. By modern practice of botanical Latin, the spelling of a generic name made from 'Buddle' would be Buddleia, but Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum of 1753 and 1754 spelled it Buddleja, with the long i between two vowels, common in early modern orthography. The pronunciation of the long i in Buddleja as j is a common modern error. The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature has gradually changed to incorporate stricter rules about orthographic variants, and as of the 2006 edition requires (article 60, particularly 60.5) that Linnaeus' spelling should be followed in this case.