| from the September 26, 2010 Newsletter issued from
Hacienda Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO LANTANA BESIDE THE WALL Above you can see one of the prettiest shrubs flowering in Pisté these days, one with its flower-laden branches tumbling over a stone fence beside a thatch-roofed hut. That's one of the most commonly planted ornamental shrubs in the world's tropical and subtropical zones. It goes by many English names, such as Spanish Flag, West Indian Lantana, Wild Sage, Red Sage, Yellow Sage and a host of other names. It's LANTANA CAMARA, and despite so frequently being referred to as a kind of sage, which belongs to the Mint Family, this pretty, six-ft-tall shrub (1.8 m) belongs to the Verbena Family, the Verbenaceae. An eye-pleasing close-up highlighting a multicolor flowering head is shown below: |
| You might recognize a strong similarity between these dog-faced little lantana flowers
and those of verbenas, which belong to the genus Verbena. The big difference
between the two genera is that Verbena's ovaries are four-celled and develop into
four discrete sections, or nutlets, while Lantana's ovaries are two-celled and
develop into two separate nutlets. Back in Chiapas in 2007 we ran into fruiting Lantana
heads, which looked so much like blackberries that I plopped some into my mouth before
realizing what I was doing. They were bitter! You can see those fruits at http://www.backyardnature.net/chiapas/lantanaf.htm. Many cultivars of Lantana camara have been developed, including "flava" with sulfur-yellow flowers changing to saffron, the dwarf "hybrida" with yellow flowers, "nivea" with white flowers, and "mista" with yellowish outer flowers changing to saffron and brick-red, and yellow inner flowers. This pretty species is native to Mexico, Central America, the West Indies and northern South America. Unfortunately, in warm countries where it's been introduced as an ornamental it tends to escape into the wild -- including the US Gulf Coastal Plain. It's listed as a Category One Invasive Toxic Species in Florida. The species is especially common in India, Australia and much of Africa. This is bad news for livestock growers since the herbage is poisonous. Livestock losses have been reported from the US, South Africa, India, Mexico, and Australia. Still, Maximino Martinez's Las Plantas Medicinales de Mexico reports that the cooked leaves are used against "rheumatism" and for making a stomach tonic. In Sinaloa a cataplasm of its cooked leaves has been used for snakebite. |