''Buddleja rufescens'' is endemic to western Peru from

Piura Piura is a city in northwestern Peru located in the Sechura Desert on the Piura River. It is the capital of the Piura Region and the Piura Province. Its population was 484,475 as of 2017. It was here that Spanish Conqueror Francisco Pizarro fou ...

to Ica where it grows along roadsides, dry river courses, and in remnants of scrubby woodland from sea level to 2,000 m. The species was first named and described by

Willdenow Carl Ludwig Willdenow (22 August 1765 – 10 July 1812) was a German botanist, pharmacist, and plant taxonomist. He is considered one of the founders of phytogeography, the study of the geographic distribution of plants. Willdenow was al ...

in 1827.Willd (1827). ''Mant.'' 3:97. 1827.Norman, E. M. (2000). Buddlejaceae. ''Flora Neotropica 81'', pp. 135 - 141. New York Botanical Garden, USA

Description

''Buddleja rufescens'' is a trioecious shrub 1 – 3 m tall with blackish fissured bark. The young branches are subquadrangular and tomentulose bearing membranaceous oblong-lanceolate or lanceolate leaves 9 – 15 cm long by 3.5 – 7 cm wide, with 0.5 – 2 cm petioles. The pale yellow

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 ar ...

leafy-bracted inflorescences are 10 – 25 cm long by 10 – 15 cm comprising 2 orders of branches bearing small cymules with 3 – 5 flowers, the

corolla Corolla may refer to: *Corolla (botany), the petals of a flower, considered as a unit *Toyota Corolla, an automobile model name * Corolla (headgear), an ancient headdress in the form of a circlet or crown * ''Corolla'' (gastropod), a genus of moll ...

s 2 – 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'' = 152.

Cultivation

The species is grown at the Museum of Natural History, Lima, and the University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4984708 rufescens Flora of Peru Flora of Southern America