BENGALURU: Dr Geetha Ramaswamy, research associate at the Nature Conservation Foundation, which has offices in Mysuru and Bengaluru, wrote an article some time back on her PhD subject - an invasive plant called Lantana. The article began on a very interesting note, talking about the mythical hero Hercules and one of the twelve impossible tasks he was given, according to legend. The task was to slay the seven-headed Hydra of Lake Lerna. The problem was that when Hercules attempted to chop this monster’s head, it would sprout two more from that very spot, and its venomous breath didn’t allow anything around it to grow. Ramaswamy, was actually describing a real life plant, which although can’t be called a monster, is still quite harmful.
She was describing the Lantana camera - a common, bushy, fruit bearing plant that has bunches of pretty flowers in colours such as pink, yellow, and orange. Lantana was brought to India by the British as an ornamental garden plant in the early 1800s. “After the British brought the plant to India from southern America, it escaped from their gardens and went and colonised in all parts of the country - forests and farms,” she says. Research showed that particularly in forests, Lantana’s presence was affecting the diversity of native plant species, as none could be found growing around it. “Since Lantana is an invasive species - which means that it evolved elsewhere and was taken to a foreign land - it is immune to a lot of diseases, insects and viruses that native plant species are prone to.
The Lantana has also been found to be better at consuming resources around it than other plants,” she says. Research on Lantana’s effect on plant diversity is being done in Australia, Africa and India, as these were the places it was brought to. “In certain forests in India, Lantana replaces grass, which is food for a lot of herbivores. Lantana isn’t eaten by animals since it is relatively new - about 200 years - and they aren’t used to it. So it has an effect on animals as well,” says Ramaswamy. She adds that in the urban areas, as long as the plant is kept contained - which is quite hard to ensure as birds eat the fruit and disperse them - it isn’t that much of a threat. However, there is no assurance that it won’t spread to forests and farmlands. The best way to get rid of the plant is uproot it, she says. However, in places where the plant is growing in abundance, it is very hard to get rid of it. Cutting or burning the plant above the soil surface only gives rise to more stems from new shoot buds, much like the monster Hercules had to defeat. Dr Ramaswamy will be speak about her the research on the Lantana on Saturday, August 26, at 5.30pm.