672 PROCEEDINGS ^OF THE THIED ENTOMOLOGICAL MEETING 



and setting into small rounded fruits. It belongs to the Natural Order 

 of Verbenacese under wbicli are grouped the following forest trees, Teak 

 and Callicarpa, and garden plants like Clerodendron and Verbena. 



The plant under investigation is one of several species of Lantana — 

 almost all natives of Mexico and South America — and has been carried 

 to the various parts of the Tropics as a garden plant. There are 

 numerous varieties of Lantana found cultivated in India, differing from 

 one another in the colour of the flowers, but all appear to belong to one 

 species, Lantana camara (or acideata). There is one species of Lantana 

 that is indigenous to India, L. indica. It has been recorded throughout 

 India, but so far as I know it occurs in the greatest abundance .in the 

 Hill Districts of South India. 



The Life-history of Lantana. 



Though never attaining the dimensions of a tree it grows into a . 

 large-sized shrub attaining to a height of nearly ten or twelve feet and 

 often climbing to a height of thirty feet or more supported by the trunks 

 of trees. When under favourable conditions the plants grow close 

 together in thick masses the branches tend to elongate into runners 

 attaining a length of thirty to fifty feet and interlace with those of the 

 neighbouring bushes so as to lead to the formation of dense thickets 

 which neither man nor beast can penetrate. It is a perennial and is 

 blessed with longevity. It is also possessed of a high vitahty which 

 plant-breeders might well yearn for to infuse into their hybrids. 



When the climate is favourable the plant flowers throughout the 

 year, but where the summer is very dry, it may completely dry up and 

 put forth shoots again when the rains again set in. It flowers profusely 

 and the quantity of fruits produced is enormous. The fruits as they 

 ripen develop a soft sweetish pulp and turn blue-black in colour. The 

 fruits are freely eaten by birds, chiefly by the bulbul, but the kernels, 

 being hard, are not acted on by the digestive juices and are cast out 

 along with the excreta without the germinating power being impaired. 



Its present distribution. 

 The beauty of the flowers having attracted the attention of man, 

 the plant has travelled step by step from its original home in Mexico 

 into almost all parts of the Tropical and Sub-tropical world. We have 

 reports as to its having become a nuisance in Hawaii, Java, Ceylon, 

 the Ma'ay Peninsula, Fiji and Queensland. In the Indian Empire 

 it is represented in one part or other of all the Provinces, but it is chiefly 

 a long the long stretch of country on either flank of the Western Ghats 

 from the latitude of Bombay down to Travancore, that Lantana 



