The butterfly tree is a deciduous, fast-growing shrub, with long arching shoots and lanceolate, pointed, green or green-grey leaves, up to 25cm long. From summer to autumn, it produces dense panicles of fragrant flowers, ranging in colour from lilac to purple, up to 30cm or more long. Native to China and Japan, it is cultivated and naturalised in Europe along streams, roadsides and woodlands. It is appreciated as an ornamental plant for its showy and prolonged summer flowering, used in mixed hedges and groups in parks and gardens. Variable, fast-growing deciduous shrub, with long arched shoots and lanceolate, pointed, green or green-grey leaves, up to 25cm long. From summer to autumn, it produces dense panicles, up to 30cm long and more, of fragrant flowers, lilac to purple in colour. Native to China and Japan, it is cultivated and naturalised in Europe along streams, road embankments, bushes. Ornamental plant for its showy and prolonged summer flowering, used above all in mixed hedges and in groups in parks and gardens.