''Buddleja nitida'' is a species endemic to much of Central America, from southern

Chiapas Chiapas (; Tzotzil language, Tzotzil and Tzeltal language, Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the Political divisions of Mexico, ...

in Mexico south to the Sierra de Talamanca in northern Panama, where it grows on limestone slopes, in

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

, in clearings and pastures at altitudes of 2,000 – 4,000 m.Norman, E. M. (2000). Buddlejaceae. ''Flora Neotropica 81''. New York Botanical Garden, USA The species was first named and described by Bentham in 1846.Bentham, G. (1845). ''DC., Prodromus'' 10: 437. 1846.

Description

''Buddleja nitida'' is a tall

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

or small tree 4 – 15 m high, with a trunk < 60 cm in diameter, its exfoliating bark brown to black. The crown is dense and rounded, the young branches subquadrangular and tomentose, bearing oblong to lanceolate subcoriaceous leaves 3 – 10 cm long by 1 – 3.5 cm wide,

glabrescent Glabrousness (from the Latin ''glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...

above, but with a strongly adpressed tomentum below. The leaves have petioles 1 – 3 cm long. The yellow to orange inflorescence is

paniculate A panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are of ...

, with 3 – 4 orders of branches, subtended by leaves or small

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s, the flowers grouped 3 – 5 in small cymules, 5 – 7 mm in diameter; the corollas 2.5 – 3 mm long.

Ploidy Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell (biology), cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for Autosome, autosomal and Pseudoautosomal region, pseudoautosomal genes. Sets of chromosomes refer to the number of mat ...

: ''2n'' = 76.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4984689 nitida Flora of Costa Rica Flora of Guatemala Flora of Honduras Flora of Mexico Flora of Panama Flora of Central America Dioecious plants