Scientific name: Lantana camara L.
Family: Verbenaceae
Synonym: Lantana mexicana Turner
Bengali/Vernacular name: Chotra, Lantana, Urusia. Kutuskata.
Tribal name: Bangal mila kher (Chakma), Shey-ju-ney-pawn (Rakhaing).
English name: Lantana.
Description of the plant: A large aromatic, evergreen, rabling or straggling shrub, 1-4 m tall, branches usually minutely pubescetnt, conspicuously prickly with hooked spines. Leaves opposite, 2.5-7.5 cm long, ovate, subacute, crenate-serrate, scrabrid on both sides. Flowers small, 5-8 mm across, variously coloured in heads, 2-3 cm across. Fruits berry-like drupes, smooth, size of a pea, black.
Plant parts used: Leaf and stem.
Medicinal uses: Extract made from leaves and stems of the plant is used to wipe the body once a day for the treatment of febrile convulsion.
Decoction of leaves and stems is used in the treatment of cough.
Distribution: It is very common in Chittagong districts, the Chittagong Hill Tracts and also found all over Bangladesh, in scrubs, roadsides and fallow lands.
Is this plant misidentified? If yes, please tell us….
