Addisonia 69 



(Plate 115) 



LANTANA DEPRESSA 

 Pineland Lantana 



Native of southern Florida 

 Family Verb^naceas Vervain FamUy 



Lantana depressa Small, Bull. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 3: 436. 1905. 



A shrub, with numerous diffuse or prostrate branches three feet 

 long or less, from a stout woody root. The branches are somewhat 

 angled, finely, often sparingly, pubescent, and unarmed. The leaves 

 are opposite, usually numerous, bright green, mostly one to two 

 inches long ; the blades are ovate to elliptic, acute or obtuse, serrate 

 to crenate-serrate, sparingly fine-pubescent on both sides, more or 

 less shining and with impressed veins above, dull and with prominent 

 veins beneath, and tapering, cuneate, or rounded at the base. 

 The flowers are borne in bracted involucrate clusters about an 

 inch in diameter, terminating minutely hairy peduncles which 

 usually exceed their subtending leaves. The bracts are lanceolate 

 to linear-lanceolate, minutely pubescent, and imbricate on the ovoid 

 or ellipsoid receptacle-like rachis. The calyx is campanulate, about 

 a twelfth of an inch long, two-lobed, usually about one half as long 

 as the subtending bract, minutely pubescent and ciliolate. The 

 corolla is deep yellow or bright orange, a half inch long or less, 

 with the finely pubescent tube slightly dilated upward and often 

 a little curved. The hmb is obHque, with a reniform upper lip 

 and a three-lobed lower lip, which has a broad, often reniform, 

 middle lobe about twice as large as the lateral lobes. The four 

 stamens are minute, borne in pairs about the middle of the corolla, 

 the posterior pair further down on the corolla-tube than the anterior. 

 The anthers are subglobose and more or less didymous, nearly or 

 quite as long as the free part of the filament. The ovary is ovoid 

 or ellipsoid, sessile, and tipped with a slender columnar style which 

 exceeds the ovary in length. The stigma is very oblique. The 

 drupes are clustered, subglobose, black or purple-black, shining, 

 about one sixth of an inch in diameter, and tardily deciduous from 

 the thickened receptacle-like rachis. 



One of the more conspicuous shrubs of the Everglade Keys at 

 nearly all seasons of the year is the plant here illustrated. 



The genus Lantana contains about fifty species. They are most 

 abundant in tropical and subtropical America; there are a few in 

 Africa and Asia. The plants range in habit from erect shrubs to 

 those with creeping stems; some are even vine-like. The flowers 

 range from white to various shades of several colors. Sometimes 

 several colors are represented on one plant. 



