Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Lantana montevidensis

Flower cluster and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Minerva Hills National Park, near Springsure, QLD

Fruit and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographers Forest & Kim Starr, Hawaii

Flowering plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Minerva Hills National Park, near Springsure, QLD

Common name

Trailing lantana. Creeping lantana

Family

Verbenaceae

Where found

Woodland, pastures, roadsides, disturbed sites and waste areas, frequently in rocky sites. Mainly Sydney area and north. Rarely farther south.

Notes

Shrub, mostly less than 0.3 m high, sprawling to prostrate, sometimes scrambling, often forming low dense thickets. Branches about 1 m long, rooting at the nodes. Fruit fleshy. Stems square in cross section at first, but becoming  more or less cylindrical, rough, more or less hairy, often sticky on young parts, prickles absent. Leaves aromatic when rubbed, opposite each other, 0.8–4 cm long, 5–25 mm wide; upper surface wrinkled and covered with sharp appressed rigid bristly hairs, lower surface more or less hairy and with yellow to orange stalkless glands, margins toothed, tips more or less pointed. Flowers  pink, mauve or purple with a white or yellowish throat, often becoming entirely purple, 8–12 mm long, 4-8 mm in diameter, tubular, with 4-5 lobes. Flower heads 1–4 cm diameter. Fruit reddish-purple to purple or purplish black. 4–8 mm in diameter. Flowering most of the year.

General Biosecurity Duty all NSW.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Lantana~montevidensis  (accessed 22 January, 2021)