Lantana
Lantana camara is an invasive weed that has spread through many forest ecosystems across India. It was brought into India (Calcutta) in 1809 as an ornamental shrub from South America. It is now one of the world’s worst weeds and is a huge threat to native plants and animals
The Crisis
A Landscape Under Siege
Its leaves and flowers contain toxins, Lantadene A and B, and so it cannot be eaten by herbivores. It puts out chemicals that inhibit/stunt the growth of other plants (allelopathic effect) and outcompetes all other plants.
Each plant can produce up to 12,000 seeds! And each seed can remain dormant for up to 11 years and will germinate faster if exposed to smoke (possibly from forest fires). They also germinate better if passed through the digestive tract of birds.
If cut down, it puts out new shoots (coppices), which grow much faster than the mother plant and form dense, impenetrable thickets. If the roots are dug up, then many dormant seeds, when exposed in the disturbed soil, all germinate, increasing the density of lantana in the area.
In short, it’s a terrible weed that has a huge detrimental effect on native species, and almost all removal strategies have been unsuccessful.
We have also worked with local communities on a
Lantana Furniture Project.
With initial inputs from ATREE in 2009, and working in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam, we launched an initiative to help local indigenous (Adivasi) communities use this weed to make furniture.
