Lantana viburnoides (Forssk.) Vahl
Ara. (Egypt): Hormaaseib.
Shrub, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 1 m in height, with opposite branches and lemony aroma. Young stems and branches ± rounded in cross section. Leaves opposite, petiolate, with petiole up to 1 cm and leaf blade to 5 × 3 cm, narrowly ovate-lanceolate, rugose, scabrid, crenate-serrated, whitish on the underside, ± acuminate and cuneate base. Inflorescences axillary, longly pedunculate, with peduncle longer than the subtending leaf, in corymbiform multiflorous spikes, dense, with bracteoles longer than the calyx, lanceolate, ciliated and with sessile flowers. Calyx c.
2 mm, tubular, membranous, green, persistent at fruiting, slightly bilabiate, with 5 lanceolate, acute lobes; the 2 lower lobes somewhat shorter than the other 3. Corolla with 5 fused petals, hypocrateriform, white with yellowish throat at anthesis, with tube c. 10 mm, ventricose at the base, angular, narrow, and bilabiate limb, with lower lip with 3 well marked lobes and emarginate, and the upper lip entire. Androecium with 4 dithecous stamens, inserted towards the middle of corolla tube, included, with very short filaments and linear-subulate anthers, yellow, glabrous. Ovary superior, cylindrical, glabrous, with filiform style, white and thick green stigma, situated at the same level as the anthers. Fruits in drupe, black, containing 2 stones (pyrene) with a seed each.
Flowering:
January to December.
Fruiting:
March to September.
Habitat:
Arid areas of the tropics and subtropics.
Distribution:
Eastern Africa and Arabian Peninsula. In North Africa it is found in coastal and subcoastal regions of the Red Sea (SE of Egypt and Sudan).
Observations:
A complex hybrid is grown in parks and gardens, L. strigocamara R.W.Sanders, which sometimes also appears naturalised and even as an invasive. This is a deciduous shrub up to 2(5) m in height, with tetragonal branches, sometimes with thorns, hirsute. Leaves (2-12 × 2-6 cm) simple, opposite, petiolate, ovate-oblong, subcordate at the base, acuminate apex, dentate margin, rough and rugose on the upper side. Inflorescence capituliform, about 2 × 3 cm, flowers yellow-orange at first, then reddish (all of these colours are seen at once in the inflorescence). Cultivated, naturalised and invasive in almost all subtropical and temperate countries of the world. In North Africa it is naturalised, mainly in coastal areas, from Morocco to Egypt.
It has been confused for a long time with L. camara L., a plant of tropical America, which also presents inflorescences with yellow flowers that turn red after anthesis, but actually L. strigocamara is a hybrid from various South American subtropical species that seems to have emerged after numerous interactions in nurseries, parks and gardens.
Conservation status:
Rare but widely distributed species. Currently, its has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Red List of vascular plants of Egypt (Flora Aegyptiaca Vol 1, 2000) it is listed as “Rare”.