Lantana montevidensis  (Sprengel) Briq.   Verbenaceae (Vervain Family)                                                                                   South America   Trailing Lantana

                                         March Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Free-flowering shrub with trailing pubescent, prickle free branches to 1 m. long; lvs. opposite, ovate, about 2.5 cm. long, abruptly narrowed at base, coarsely toothed; fls. about 12 mm. long, in long-peduncled heads 2.5 cm. or more across, rosy-lilac; corolla irregular, lobes 4 or 5; stamens 4, included; the outer bracts or scales of the involucre broad-ovate and hairy and not more than half as long as the slender pubescent corolla-tube; fr. a fleshy drupe with 2 bony nutlets.

Habitat:  Escape from cultivation.  Disturbed slopes, roadsides, urban weed below 200 m.  Naturalized +/- worldwide. (Hickman, Ed. 1086).

Name:  Lanta-na, old name, also applied to a Viburnum.  (Bailey 842).  Montevidensis, of Montevideo, Uruguay.  (Bailey 18).

General:  Rare in the study area with only one plant known and this in the flats below the intersection of Back Bay Dr. and Eastbluff Dr.  (my comments).      See Lantana camera for additional information on the species. (my comment).      About 150 species, mostly in tropic and subtropic America but also in Asia and Africa.  (Hickman, Ed. 1086).

Text Ref:  Bailey 842; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 850; Hickman, Ed. 1086.

Photo Ref:  Feb-May 98 # 9A; April 04 #20A.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by John Johnson.

First Found:  February 1998.

Computer Ref: Plant Data 509.

No plant specimen.

Last edit 1/4/04.  

                        February Photo                                                           April Photo