The genus name Leycesteria was coined by Nathaniel Wallich (one time director of Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta) in honour of his friend William Leycester, Chief justice and noted amateur horticulturist, in Bengal in about 1820;[5] while the Latin specific name formosa (feminine form of formosus) signifies 'beautiful' or 'handsome' (literally: 'shapely')[6][7] – in reference to the curious, pendent inflorescences with their richly wine-coloured bracts.

[26] It is found to be a hardy evergreen, requiring a considerable degree of moisture, and a situation slightly sheltered and shaded, though the colour of its bracts would be most probably be heightened by exposure to solar light.

Propagation is effected by cuttings or layers.Joseph PaxtonPaxton's Magazine of Botany Volume VI (1839) [27] A deciduous, sometimes evergreen, half-woody, shrub-like plant (intermediate between a shrub and a herbaceous perennial) with young stems that are soft, hollow and upright in various shades of green, salmon pink, maroon and purple, 1–3 m (3 ft 3 in – 9 ft 10 in)[28] in height, which may only last for 2–5 years before collapsing and being replaced by new stems from the roots.

[31] The berries are unpleasantly bitter when unripe, but, once soft and deep purple-brown in colour, are edible and sweet, having a mild flavour reminiscent of toffee or caramel.

From the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab it ranges the whole length of the Himalaya eastwards to south-eastern Yunnan, where it was collected by Henry near Mengtze, and north-eastwards to Szechuan and eastern Tibet, where Rehder's var.

Airy-Shaw[34] The species is native to Pakistan, India, Nepal, East and West Himalaya, Southwestern China (Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou), Tibet and Myanmar.

Its leaves are a pale dull green...it has a rambling inelegant mode of growth, and the colour of the bracts is not at all brighter than what is represented in the accompanying plate.John LindleyThe Botanical Register (1839)[37]The character of the plant, as developed in an artificial climate, is far from being so good as the accounts of Indian botanists had led us to anticipate.

[37]and, a century or so later, Coats could give it similarly mixed praise, prescient in her anticipation of the plant's subsequent classification, in certain other countries, as an invasive weed: Its hardiness and ease of propagation have led to it being regarded as a background-shrub, and its peculiar merits are rather overlooked.

[48] The Yi (speakers of various Loloish languages of Burmese affiliation[49]) are notable for their rich cultural heritage, having retained their ancient shamanic faith of Bimoism,[50] which incorporates a traditional body of ethnomedicinal knowledge.

[52] In the context of the current global pandemic, it is potentially of considerable interest that the Yi may repeatedly have been exposed to coronavirus in the course their history, discovered herbal treatments effective, in some measure, against viral diseases centuries ago, and incorporated these findings into their system of traditional medicine.

[citation needed] The Monpa people of Mêdog County, Southeast Tibet use unspecified plant parts of L. formosa (known locally by the common name pya-min-mon) to stem blood loss in cases of traumatic bleeding.

[56] This description is curious on two counts, for Leycesteria formosa – at any rate when grown as an ornamental shrub in Europe – is neither notably aromatic nor a parasite, lacking as it does haustoria to tap nutrients from a host plant.

The plant is certainly often to be observed growing as a lithophyte – specifically a chasmophyte – in a minimal substrate, e.g. from bird droppings deposited in rock crevices or in cracks in the mortar of old walls.

[57] In Standard Chinese L. formosa is best-known under the common name 鬼吹簫 (Guĭ chuī xiāo) – approximate pronunciation "gwé chwé siaaow"[58] – meaning ghost flute (literally ghost-blown flute) / "xiao of the spirits", although Zhang et al. list also (in translation only) other common names rendered as "gun barrel", "hollow wood", "wild lupine" and the more cryptic "golden chicken lock".

[25] In the semi-humoral system of Traditional Chinese medicine, as practised in southwest China, the plant is believed to remove excess "dampness" (湿; shī) and "heat" (火; huǒ), to promote blood circulation and to stop bleeding.

[25] It is also used to treat (among other diseases/disease concepts) "damp heat jaundice" (referable possibly to hepatitis), arthritic pain[25] (notably that caused by rheumatoid arthritis[59]), asthma, irregular menstruation, cystitis and bone fracture.

The curious name Jīnjī yī bǎ suǒ, translating as 'Golden rooster lock', suggests that the plant was thought to relate in some way to the good luck / wealth-bringing symbol of the golden cockerel.

[65][66] Other uses of the plant in North India (states Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Ladakh and Sikkim) are as a green manure and as firewood.