The xerophytic shrub was discovered and collected in 1904 in the Llalung Valley (altitude 3,300  m), Tibet, by Captain Herbert Walton I. M. S., Medical Officer and Naturalist to the Tibet Frontier Commission, whilst travelling from Sikkim to Lhasa on the British expedition to Tibet. The shrub was introduced to the UK by Lord Wigram, who received it from the Lloyd Botanic Garden in Darjeeling as "Buddleja hastata" in 1931.