CSIR-NEERI Biodiversity Portal

NEERI Biodiversity Portal

Easy access to campus Biodiversity...

Facilitates Learning & Sharing Knowledge of Biodiversity on a Click

NBP was inaugurated by Dr. M.S. Ladania, Director, NRCC Nagpur on 8 April 2015

Creeping Lantana

Lantana montevidensis (Spreng.) Briq

Botanical name	: Lantana montevidensis (Spreng.) Briq
Common Name	: Creeping lantana
Family	: Verbenaceae
Synonym	: Lantana sellowiana Link & Otto
About	: Low-growing (i.e. prostrate or decumbent), long-lived, shrubby plant forming dense mats of vegetation over the ground. Its leaves are borne in pairs along the slender, (1-2 mm thick) unarmed, quadrangular at first, but become woody (about 5 mm thick) and more or less cylindrical as they mature. Creeping stems. its small tubular flowers are borne in compact clusters (1-4 cm across), these flowers (8-12 mm long and 4-8 mm across) are usually pink, mauve or purple with a white or yellowish coloured throat. The fruit is a single-seeded fleshy 'berry' (i.e. drupe),6-8 mm across , green at first and turn pinkish, reddish-purple or purplish in colour as they mature. The pale seeds are stony and about 4 mm long. They sometimes also produce roots at their joints (i.e. nodes) where they come into contact with the soil. This plant reproduces by seed, Native to South America.