Buddleja crispa, the Himalayan butterfly bush,[1] is a deciduous shrub native to Afghanistan, Bhutan, North India, Nepal, Pakistan and China (Gansu, Sichuan, Tibetan Autonomous Region), where it grows on dry river beds, slopes with boulders, exposed cliffs, and in thickets, at elevations of 1400–4300 m.[2] Named by Bentham in 1835, B. crispa was introduced to cultivation in 1850,[3] and came to be considered one of the more attractive species within the genus; it ranked 8th out of 57 species and cultivars in a public poll organized by the Center for Applied Nursery Research (CANR) at the University of Georgia, US.

In his 1979 revision of the taxonomy of the African and Asiatic species of Buddleja, the Dutch botanist Toon Leeuwenberg sank five Chinese species as B. crispa on the basis of the similarity in the individual flowers, dismissing the wide ranges in size of both inflorescence and leaf as attributable to environmental factors.

The 'original' B. crispa as known to horticulture, cloned from a plant grown at Aldenham, England (see Cultivation), is a comparatively slow growing deciduous shrub of bushy habit, reaching 3.5 m high, more in spread.

[10] The former species sunk by Leeuwenberg, as listed in the preceding section, have, with the exception of "B. sterniana", inflorescences of varying density < 12  cm long, complemented by leaves of variable size and shape, often covered in a dense white tomentum when young.

Buddleja crispa needs a well-drained soil and full sun; Bean states that it is at its best when grown on a wall.