2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Today, when ordinary Russians began to travel the world, they meet many new plants, enchanting with their leaves, flowers and fruits. Some berries just ask to be put in your mouth, but you should not act rashly and taste the beauty, not even knowing the name of the plant miracle. One of these attractive, but far from harmless plants is Lantana
Description
Branches
Lantana is a herbaceous plant, but in the resorts of Egypt, Turkey, Thailand, popular among Russians, it is usually represented by shrubs that grow up to two meters in height, if, according to the designers' ideas, the bushes are not cut a little lower.
The branches of the shrub can be smooth or thorny. The shrub is highly branched and grows rapidly, creating a dense green hedge. Such hedges can be found on the streets of resort towns or as a framing of walking paths in hotels.
Lantana looks great in a solo fit. But the loneliness of the bush should certainly be watched, since the seeds that have fallen from the plant easily give briskly growing shoots that violate the privacy.
The shrub reproduces easily by self-seeding. In addition, birds who love to feast on the bright black fruits of the plant are engaged in the expansion of the planting territories of Lantana.
Lantana competes with Bamboo and Reed for furniture. Such furniture is more resistant to the destructive effects of sunlight, streams of rain or voracious white ants - termites.
Leaves
Lantana leaves are juicy, dark green in color. The edge of the leaf is covered with graceful denticles (they write that in some species the leaves may have a solid edge). The ovate-oblong shape of the leaf ends with a sharp spout. It seems that the veins tighten the tissue of the leaf too much, making its surface wrinkled and rough.
The pleasant smell of the leaves for humans, reminiscent of the scent of mint, but thicker and more bitter, is dangerous to animals. After all, Lantana leaves contain toxic substances that cause structural and functional disorders in the liver of goats, sheep, cows, horses, and also increase the photosensitivity of their skin. Such properties of the leaves are the reason for the loss of livestock in Australia, Mexico, India, USA, and South Africa.
Interestingly, not all animals are contraindicated in Lantana leaves. For example, in Australia there is a small marsupial animal, the Swamp Wallaby, which devours such leaves without any bad consequences for itself.
Lantana camara extracts are recommended in the fight against aphids, which love to feast on cabbage. We do not grow cabbage, but it was on the leaves of Lantana vaulted, growing in our yard, that I found a "fat" white aphid, abundantly settled on the stems of a single bush that grew spontaneously.
Flowers
Lantana flowers resemble those of its relative Verbena, only their size is much smaller. They form miniature inflorescences, which nature has generously painted in a variety of colors.
Flowers in the inflorescence can be monochromatic: white, yellow in different shades, pink, orange, red, lilac; or demonstrate an amazing combination of different colors.
The fragrant flowers attract bees and butterflies.
Fruit
I paid particular attention to the bushes in the yard when the flowers gave way to fruits. The green berries looked like large raspberries. Then the fruits began to darken and turned into black shiny berries resembling blackberries. The question arose: "Is it possible to eat these pretty fruits, which are simply strewn with bushes?"
I began to ask people what this plant is called to find out about the berries. But neither Russian-speaking nor Egyptians could answer me. Somehow, no one here is interested in names. Nice, and okay.
As always, the Internet came to the rescue, where I nevertheless "dug up" the name of the plant and found out that people have disagreements about the edibility of berries. Some argue that only green fruits are poisonous, and black ones can be eaten (after all, birds eat them), others say that you should not take risks with black ones. We did not risk it:).
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