Americanized Lantana Gardens Tweak Seedy Relatives of Remarkable Teak

Summary: Amercanized lantana gardens leave Brazilian vervain, lantana and mat grass, for their and everyone else's good, with limits on light, moisture and room.

colorful display of lantana (Lantana camara), also known as large-leaf lantana; Nuu Mauka, eastern Maui; Nov. 27, 2004: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Non-natives arrive in their adopted homelands without their accustomed pathogens and pests to assist in population control and thereby assume advantages over native vegetation, as in the case of Americanized lantana gardens.

Lantana braves orchards, pastures, roadsides and woodlands by building soils up with allelopathic chemicals that bode ill for the proper growth of soil food web members. The deciduous perennial shrub from the West Indies carries no federal, provincial, state or territorial designations as weeds unwelcome in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Delight in and disdain for the woody member in the Verbenaceae family of vervain-related herbs, shrubs and trees date back to deliberate introductions in the 1800s.

Since the nineteenth century, the introduced landscape ornamental exposes North American children to toxins in the fruits and North American livestock to toxins in the leaves.

Lantana, also called confetti bush, largeleaf lantana, red-flowered sage, shrub verbena, tick berry, white sage and wild sage, forms embryonic leaves called cotyledons with shallow-notched tips.

Seedlings grow into shade-intolerant, 6.56- to 16.4-foot- (2- to 5-meter-) tall, strong-smelling, sun-loving shrubs whose cold hardiness gives out below 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). Lantana, scientifically called Lantana camara (wayfaring chamber) and described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), has branched, bristly, four-angled, hairy, prickly stems. The 1.97- to 5.91-inch- (5- to 15-centimeter-) long, 0.79- to 2.95-inch- (2- to 7.5-centimeter-) wide foliage includes blunt-toothed margins, opposite-positioned stem arrangements and rough-haired, veined surfaces.

Mature leaves jettison embryonic roundness for oval shapes atop 0.79-inch- (2-centimeter-) long stalks and self-defensively juxtapose pervasively pungent scents when crushed and irritating textures when touched.

Dense, flat-topped clusters, 0.79 to 1.58 inches (2 to 4 centimeters) across, called inflorescences, with four-lobed, tube-shaped flowers, keep lantana communities blooming from April to October.

Every floral cluster loads 20 to 40 lavender, orange, pink, red, white or yellow flowers, each bloom 0.19 to 0.35 inches (5 to 9 millimeters) long. Each irregular, perfect flower manages one pistil, four stamens, four united petals and five sepals before making way for fruiting, seeding stages in Americanized lantana gardens. Berry-like, fleshy, one-seeded fruits called drupes, 0.16 to 0.32 inches (4 to 8 millimeters) across, navigate color changes from immature green and purple to mature blue-black.

Lantana offers the multiple reproduction means of layering, producing up to 12,000 yellow to pale brown, 0.06- to 0.32-inch- (1.5- to 4-millimeter-) long seeds and resprouts.

Exposure to light promotes lantana seed germination, whose viability persists for six months when placed in dry storage and for five years when put in soil.

Brazilian vervain of South America and mat grass, also called turkey tangle fogfruit, of tropical America qualify as lantana-related ornamental introductions lantana-like in seediness and weediness. Both vervain family members, non-native to the North American continent, receive no federal, provincial, state or territorial weed designations in Canada, Mexico and the United States. They stave off ground reflection loss, soil erosion and surface runoff by spreading over desirable and undesirable moist, sunlit habitat niches and by subduing native vegetation.

Judicious light and moisture levels in courtyard-styled, grove-like Americanized lantana gardens tweak Brazilian vervain, lantana and mat grass into less rambunctious relatives of remarkable teak trees.

closeup of lantana's flowers and leaves; northwestern Lisbon Metropolitan Area, west central Portuguese coast; October 2006: Joaquim Alves Gaspar (Alvesgaspar), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

colorful display of lantana (Lantana camara), also known as large-leaf lantana; Nuu Mauka, eastern Maui; Nov. 27, 2004: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/starr-environmental/24720374375/

closeup of lantana's flowers and leaves; northwestern Lisbon Metropolitan Area, west central Portuguese coast; October 2006: Joaquim Alves Gaspar (Alvesgaspar), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LantanaFlowerLeaves.jpg

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London England: The University of Chicago Press.

"Lantana camara L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/33700010

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "3. Lantana camara." Species Plantarum, vol. II: 627. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358648

Modzelevich, Martha. "Lantana camara, Lantana armata, Lantana aculeata, Spanish Flag, Red (Yellow, Wild) Sage, Hebrew: לנטנה ססגונית, Arabic: وردة الذيب." Flowers in Israel.
Available @ http://www.flowersinisrael.com/lantanacamara_page.htm

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.