Description:

• Shrubs, trees or suffrutices; pubescence often scaly or stellate
• Leaves opposite or occasionally subopposite, alternate or ternate, simple, petiolate or sometimes connate at base; stipules present or represented by an interpetiolar ridge, sometimes obscure
• Inflorescence of many-flowered, terminal or axillary, paniculate cymes, or corymbosely congested, sometimes contracted into pseudoheads or umbels, or in terminal racemes with 2-bracteate pedicels
• Flowers regular, bisexual
• Calyx 4-lobed
• Corolla 4-lobed; tube short to long, campanulate to cylindric, sometimes bearded in the throat; lobes becoming recurved or reflexed in open flower
• Stamens 4, arising on corolla tube at, in or near throat, included to long-exserted, free portion of filament short to long; anthers basifixed, with longitudinal slits
• Ovary superior, 2-locular, pubescent; stigma terminal, sometimes decurrent; ovules several to many on thickened axile placentas, hemitropous
• Capsules small, subcylindric, ovoid, obovoid or oblong, sometimes 2-lobed, septicidally dehiscent, the valves usually splitting at apex
• Seeds with endosperm; embryo straight

Classification Notes:

• The family was formerly included in the Loganiaceae

Nomenclature:

• Buddlejaceae
  • Wilhelm: 90 (1910)
  • Verdoorn: 150 (1963) under Loganiaceae
  • Roessler: 1 (1967)
  • Leeuwenberg: 327 (1983) under Loganiaceae
  • Takhtajan: 452, 457 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera 8, species 120, Africa, Mascarenes, Asia and America
• Southern Africa: Genera 3, species ± 14

References:

• LEEUWENBERG, A.J.M. 1983. Loganiaceae. Flora zambesiaca 7,1
• ROESSLER, H. 1967. Buddlejaceae. Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 125
• TAKHTAJAN, A. 1997. Diversity and classification of flowering plants: 452, 457. Columbia University Press, New York
• VERDOORN, I.C. 1963. Loganiaceae. Flora of southern Africa 26
• WILHELM, K. 1910. Die Samenpflanzen. Franz Deuticke, Vienna and Leipzig

Resources:

• Key to Buddlejaceae genera

• Buddlejaceae genera: