Wikipedia
Texas lantana
Lantana urticoides, or Texas lantana, thrives here in the Lowcountry as a wild native plant. It has petals that vary from yellow to orange to pink. As each small flower ages, the petals change color and darken to different shades. Another cultivar, lantana montevidensis, is trailing or vinelike with golden yellow, white or purple single-colored blooms and can be bought in local garden centers, but, unlike the bicolored ones, these do not have value to wildlife and are purely decorative.
Other common names for the upright woody perennial are shrub lantana, shrub verbena and West Indian lantana. They have bicolored flowers in shades of red and yellow, pink and orange or pink and yellow and can reach to as tall as 6 feet in a large, spreading bush. Lantana is not only drought-resistant but also salt-resistant, making it an easy plant to grow at the beach. It requires at least six hours of full sun a day and blooms from May until October.
This plant is thought to have been taken from Central and South America by Dutch explorers to other continents, where, in places like India, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, it became a problem because it outcompeted native plants. It was adaptable to many growing conditions and became listed as invasive in 50 countries around the world. It can also be fire resistant and can come back from the roots after being burned.
The leaves are pungent and toxic to mammals, causing damage or death to cats, dogs, horses and livestock who feed on it where it grows wild in agricultural areas.
When we lived in Wild Dunes for a few years while building a new house on the Isle of Palms, it was one of the few plants I could depend on that the abundant deer there would not eat. Our Isle of Palms deer seem to love roses, hydrangea and many other garden favorites. Lantana berries also are toxic when green, but I am told that when they ripen to dark blue, they can be used to make jellies, jams and pies – which I would not do.
According to studies in India, lantana leaves can have antimicrobial, fungicidal and insecticidal properties. Lantana has also been used in herbal medicines for cancer, itching, leprosy, chicken pox, measles, ulcers and high blood pressure – but these uses have not been proven effective.
The good news is that our winters are cold enough in the Lowcountry to check this plant’s growth and keep it from becoming a problem. Mine die back and lose their leaves with the first frost, but they should not be cut down near the ground until the end of winter because the plant needs to keep those leafless branches throughout the winter for good health.
I consider it a good and useful perennial. Sometimes I pull up seedlings that start to grow in unsuitable places where birds have eaten the berries and dropped seeds, but they attract songbirds, hummingbirds and butterflies.