Blooming buddleia - in pictures

Every summer, Britain's buildings and brown fields come alive with the heavy purple blooms of buddleia. Photograph: Helen Babbs

Any self-respecting rubble strewn wasteland hosts jungle-like clumps of the butterfly bush; all brick bridges sport a vigorous tuft or two. Photograph: Helen Babbs

Buddleia is surely the perfect urbanite – exotic origins, eccentric tastes and a willingness to live precariously in the oddest places. It is beautiful and disheveled in equal measure, enjoying heady moments of sweet success and long, horrible hangovers. Photograph: Helen Babbs

Most impressive of all are the plants with nerves of steel that cling to the vertiginous sides of the tallest buildings and blow puffs of purple smoke out of old chimneys. These bushes cling to the side of a building in London, with the Shard in the background. Photograph: Helen Babbs