Lantana involucrata L.

• Title

  Lantana involucrata L.

• Authors

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Lantana involucrata L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Lantana involucrata Santa Maria Button Sage Family Verbenaceae Vervain Family Lantana involucrata Linnaeus, Centuria Plantarum 2: 22. 1756. Lantana odorata Linnaeus, Systema Naturae , edition 12, 2:418.1767. A frequent, locally abundant, fragrant shrub at lower and middle altitudes in Porto Rico, especially near the coasts, but, locally ascending to about 400 meters elevation, and growing on all the small islands Desecheo, Mona, Cayo Muertos, Cayo Icacos, Vieques and Culebra, inhabiting hillsides, sand-dunes and thickets. It has small leaves, and small, white, lilac, or violet flowers in dense, stalked, round clusters. Geographically it is distributed throughout the West Indies, ranging north to Florida, and to Bermuda, also in Mexico and Central America, and recorded from the Galapagos Islands. This shrub differs much in aspect from the 2 other Lantanas illustrated in this work, and also by having an involucre of several bracts at the base of the flower-clusters; its leaves are various in size, shape, and in slender, or prominent venation. We refer, for an account of the genus, to our description of Lantana Camara . Lantana involucrata (involucrate, referring to the bracts at the base of the flower-heads) is a hairy, branched shrub from 0.6 to 1.5 meters high, rarely forming a small tree about 4 meters high, with narrowly fissu[r]ed bark, the stiff branches nearly round. The elliptic to ovate, stalked, finely and bluntly toothed, blunt leaves are from 1 to 4 centimeters long, the upper surface rough, the under side hairy. The flowers are several together, on a stalk from 1 to 5 centimeters long, the clusters subtended by ovate or lance-shaped bracts from 3 to 6 millimeters long; the tube of the white, lilac, or violet corolla is from 5 to 8 millimeters long, the limb from 4.5 to 6 millimeters wide. The blue to purple fruits are about 3 millimeters in diameter.