Description: Herbs or shrubs, erect, decumbent or scandent; branches weak, often ± scrambling, 4-angled, ± scabrous and sometimes prickly.
Leaves mostly opposite, simple, ± scabrous.
Inflorescences axillary, pedunculate heads or rarely spikes; bracts present. Flowers ± actinomorphic. Calyx truncate and entire or sinuately toothed. Corolla tube slender; lobes 4 or 5. Stamens 4, didynamous, included in corolla tube. Ovary 2-locular; ovules 1 per loculus.
Fruits drupaceous, ± succulent, 2-locular or dividing into 2, 1-locular pyrenes.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 150 species, tropical America and tropical & southern Africa. Australia: 2 species (naturalized), Qld, N.S.W., N.T.
Text by B. J. Conn
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Large shrub, sometimes scandent to c. 3 m high; flowers white, yellow, orange, red or pink, not purplish; mature leaves more than 2.5 cm long, lower surface without coloured glands | Lantana camara |
| Decumbent shrub, rooting at nodes; flowers purplish; leaves less than 2.5 cm long, lower surface with sessile yellow to orange coloured glands | Lantana montevidensis |
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