It is observed that lantana camara (family Verbenaceae) , Commonly known as Putus in jharkhand is having multicolour flowers .
When I looked why there is multicolour in this flowers found that
The flowers on each cluster open in a pattern, beginning in the center and moving out toward the edge. Lantana flower buds typically look one color when they’re closed, then open to reveal another color underneath. Later, “the flowers change color as they age.”
I and @manmasih were discussing about this plant because of it’s multicolour flowers but Manisha told more intresting things told about lantana camara.
The genus Lantana, as described by Linnaeus in 1753 in Species . Lantana is mostly native to subtropical and tropical America, but a few taxa are indigenous to tropical Asia and Africa.
Good butterfly diversity can be found around Lantana flowers as this species is mostly pollinated by butterflies. Fruits are delicacy for many birds. It is thus useful as a honey plant and used for butterfly gardening.
Roots of Lantana are rich source of oleanolic acid which shows anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, anti-tumour, anti-oxidant, and anti-hyperlipidemic activity . Uses of Lantana extract as herbal medicine are known in the folk medicine (Sastri, 1962; Kirtikar & Basu, 2000; Ghisalberti, 2000) for the treatment of chicken pox, measles, asthma, skin itches, antiseptic for wounds, and externally in leprosy.
Lantana was initially brought to India in 1807 as an ornamental plant at the National Botanical Garden (Kohli et al., 2006), and as an ornamental hedge plant in Calcutta in the early nineteenth century (Hakimuddin, 1929). But later this plant has spread out across all open areas along road sides, railway tracks, edges of crop fields and open forests all over the country.
Lantana has several characters that invites fire (Hiremath & Sundaram, 2005). It re-sprouts readily on being burnt (Pereira, 1919; Hakimuddin, 1929). The fire has favourable effect on the growth of Lantana. This not only increases coppicing potential of the species but also breaks the dormancy of the seeds and helps in massive new growth. Lantana affected with fire regenerate more vigorously than coìntrol (Joshi, 2002).
2019-07-10T18:30:00Z
