Talk:Lantana camara

New Revision

Hi, I am a final year biology student with an interest in plant biology and invasive species. I would like to do a full revision of this article as part of a final year project at Imperial College London. The new revision should be completed by 27th March 2014. If anyone has any questions/concerns please feel free to post on my user page - U Beetlejuice U (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Furniture

The assertion that furniture is made from the wood I find very hard to believe. In my experience in (South Africa, where it is a declared weed) Lantana Camara only ever forms a very small woody trunk, even in the largest specimens. No furniture could possibly be made from such small pieces of wood, and the wood would be too soft anyway! I think the person who added that section might be thinking of a different type of Lantana, or it might be that the plant grows differently in other climates. Will someone with more knowledge please look into this? Oom Kosie 22:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It is woven into cane-like furniture and not solid. Some pictures here []. Shyamal 01:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Also domesticated!

Lantana camara blooms throughout the year and is often planted in public and private gardens, as decoration or hedging, because of its colourful flowers, pleasent scent and ability to withstand harsh conditions without special care. It has been domesticated for some time and several colour varieties are available from commercial nurseries: shades of yellow, pink-and-white, orange-and-yellow, lavender/light blue, and purple, as well as the more common pink-and-yellow.

Some gardeners treat Lantana camera as a weed because it proliferates and migrates easily, others cultivate it for its useful properties. While the flowers' perfume is pleasant, the stalks and leaves produce an astringent aroma and are prickly to the touch, often causing mild dermatitis or skin irritation. It produces small, black or dark purple berries about 5mm. in diameter which are highly prized by some species of birds. If cut in the early stages of blooming and placed in water for half-an-hour, the flowers produce a spicy, fresh scent.

[Compiled from various sources and personal observation. Shir-El too 04:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)]

Added an ornamental section. You should consider adding the content to the article with reference citations. cheers. Shyamal 05:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• I will if you think it appropirate. I don't have citations; I wrote from memory. Because I like the flowers I tried to research the subject on the Internet, and found precious little to go on. So I questioned chance-met gardeners and nurseries [for example, the coloured Lanatan may not be 'camara', for all I know] in my area and made my own observations on how it spreads, berries, birds, etc.
• I suspect parts of it may also have medicinal uses, and I remember seeing what looked like a Lantana camera represented on a wrapper of Ricola Swiss herbal candies, but I don't see a reference to it on the package. Thank you, Shir-El too

Another personal observation: Lantana camara is a popular ornamental and volunteer in the Sonoran Desert uplands of southern Arizona and Sonora. It flowers year-round given minimal attention and a bit of supplemental water, and can survive in the wild in wetter years, but isn't really invasive there. I had a number of lantana bushes in my yard in Tucson, which made attractive, low-maintenance ornamentals. They freeze back in winter & can survive freezes to around 15 deg. F, rapidly recovering in spring. Some consider the plant a nuisance due to the prickly stalks. Pete Tillman (talk) 04:11, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Name, and additions

I've been Googling this to find some refs for Shir-El, and I've found that the name "Spanish Flag" is actually given mostly to Mina lobata [], and Lantana camara is sometimes called the "Mexican Sunflower". Probably "common names" overlap, but is it worth mentioning the Mexican Sunflower name? [] (pdf, but viewed as HTML so a bit odd format). I've added references to the name of Spanish Flag, and to the location of origin, and I've placed all the existing references into citation templates for ease of reading and consistency. I have also changed the heading "Weed" to "Ecological impact" to allow for a broader description.

Per the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council: (The pdf file linked) "Ecological Significance: A serious to common weed in 25 countries and present as a weed in another 22 countries (Holm et al. 1979). A serious, worldwide invader that in some areas has altered habitats and threatens to eliminate populations of native plants and animals (Cronk and Fuller 1995). Can become the dominant understory in open forests (Holm et al. 1977). In Florida, often forms thickets in sunny open areas; commonly invades disturbed sites such as roadsides, spoil islands, pastures, citrus groves, and cultivated woodlands. Also frequent in well-drained undisturbed habitats such as native pinelands, hammocks, and beach dunes. Reported from over 40 natural areas from Dade County to Okaloosa County (EPPC 1996). Widely promoted for ornamental cultivation since the early 1800s (Mack 1991), with wild plants in Florida representing tetraploid cultivars (Hammer 1997). Has extensively hybridized with all 3 distinct varieties of L. depressa (Sanders 1987), contaminating the endemic gene pool."

I've removed the stub template, and changed the "class" to B, as this is no longer a stub/start class article. Cheers, ^Ariel♥Gold 09:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Toxicity

I never ingested "Lantana camara", but I was told in Brazil that its fruits are toxic. The same states the German Wikipedia article. If this is the only reference that states that the fruits aren't toxic, then we should delete it. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 11:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

"Disambiguation" section

This section appears completely speculative and superfluous. It contradict a secition immediately above it. Unlike the section it contradicts, which is referenced, the "disambiguation" section does not reference any of its speculations. If there is no objection I propose to remove it. MFdeS (talk) 00:59, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

agreed, it's an interesting text but seems out of place Potholehotline (talk) 20:30, 14 February 2019 (UTC)