*Lantana camara

Family Verbenaceae

Lantana

Aromatic shrub to 3 m high, with long weak branches and 4-angled stems with numerous prickles and robust rootstock. The sprawling stems root at nodes and roots sucker if damages or broken.

Flowers: Clusters of yellow, orange, red, pink and white (in combinations) in heads. Probably pollinated by butterflies, honey bees and possibly flies.

Fruit: 0.5 mm black, fleshy, berries in clusters of 1 – 20. Fruit reportedly eaten by Rainbow Lorikeet Tricholglossus haematodus, Crimson Rosella, Platycercus elegans, Red whiskered Bulbull, Pycnonotus jocosus.

Seed: Each berry contains one black seed. Dispersed by Pied Currawong Strepera graculina

Gallery images: seed, seedling, rootstock, resprout

Ecology

• Native to South America
• Weed in gullies and disturbed sites
• Minor weed in woodland at the Australian Botanic Garden.
• Resprouts after fire.

Asterisk * indicates exotic species naturalised at the Australian Botanic Garden.