Genus: Bupleurum

Yes your right Andrewr, i've just looked it up. Bupleurum brought me to this site and your pages. The label on the plants where i got the seed did say that it or they came from china, now did it mean some of the family came from there, i don't know. The seeds came from Askham Bryan college near York. When i went to Corfu about 5 years ago i went to a taverna and they had planted a hedge of it right next to the tables. They were only a foot tall. Not a good idea lol, poor people trying to eat with all those flies, wasps.

According to my 'bible', this comes from the Mediterranean

Hi Andrewr, i've had this in my garden for about 6 years. I got some seed when we went on a works seminar. On the plant label it said it came from China, mine is against a south facing fence and reached a height of 5 feet but then it started to fall over. I pruned it down to about 2 feet after flowering and it was alot neater the following year. I will prune it again this year... Bye the way if you don't like flies, wasps, or hover flies don't grow it lol. Great for me who loves to photograph them though.

Nice looking plant, I like the leaf color and structure, along with the unusual looking flower heads. I'll have to do some research on this one for sure ~!

Impressive plant!

It's slightly taller than me (I'm six feet tall) and a bit rangy. I recently cut out a couple of branches that were attempting to grow horizontally and after flowering, I'm pruning it in an attempt to give it a more upright habit

This looks Huge :O

The grey-green leaves just under the flowers are the foliage of this plant.
Umbelliferous means all the stems for the flowers spring from one point (like the spokes of an umbrella)

Very nicelooking plant. What means umbelliferous??? Perhaps you should have left the seedlings till larger and then planted them out? I like the plant underneath too, or is that its foliage? To me this plant is a stranger!