🌿 Weed
ANX-WEED-0000263
Lantana
Lantana camara
Lantana (Lantana camara), a perennial woody shrub weed of the Verbenaceae family.
- Family
- Verbenaceae
- Growth habit
- Woody shrub
- Life cycle
- Perennial
- Invasive status
- Listed among the world's 100 worst invasive alien species
- Native region
- Tropical Americas, now one of the world's most widespread invasive shrubs.
- Reproduction
- Seed (bird-dispersed berries) and vegetative resprouting from cut stems/roots.
Environment
Habitat & Growing Conditions
- Habitat
- Pastures, forest edges, roadsides, disturbed and abandoned land.
- Climate requirements
- Tropical to subtropical; highly adaptable to both wet and dry seasons.
- Soil types
- Tolerates poor, degraded soils and disturbed ground where other vegetation struggles.
Impact
Crops Affected & Economic Impact
- Affected crops
- Pastures and rangeland (reduces grazing area); indirectly affects adjacent croplands via seed spread
- Competition impact
- Forms dense, thorny thickets that displace native vegetation and pasture grasses; foliage is toxic to livestock (hepatotoxic and photosensitizing), and it can host crop pests.
- Economic impact
- One of the costliest invasive species globally in terms of lost grazing land and control expenditure.
Management
Control Methods
- Control methods
- Mechanical clearing followed by root removal or repeated cutting, combined with reseeding competitive groundcover.
- Organic control
- Repeated cutting and manual uprooting of the root crown, since cut stems readily resprout; biological control agents (various leaf-feeding insects) are used in some countries.
- Chemical control
- Systemic brush herbicides (e.g. triclopyr, glyphosate) applied to cut stumps or foliage; often needs repeat treatment for full root kill.