The plant pictured here is a variety of Lantana camara, family Verbenaceae. It is a native of the Gulf Coast portion of United States from Georgia to Texas. It likes well drained soil and resists drought and salt spray well. It can grow in partial shade but prefers sunny locations. The many flowered head of this variety produces pink blooms with orange centers and yellow blooms with deeper yellow centers.
This plant flowers from early spring until frost, many insects including bees feed upon its nectar. Its abundant black fruit are eaten by birds for the seeds they contain; however, caution must be taken to prevent children from eating these berries because they are poisonous. Also, if fowl raised for human consumption consume enough berries their flesh can become toxic to people.
Lantana grow so well that they can outcompete other plants and prevent the offspring of canopy trees from being able to establish. Thus, overtime lantana can change the ecosystem it has invaded and reduce its biodiversity.
The plants here exist in dry west Texas and are killed back by frost each year. We remove dead vines in the early winter and the roots survive the cold and reestablish in the spring. Two weeks of snow on the ground last winter didn’t harm our plantings.
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