[3] Lantana's aromatic flower clusters (called umbels) are a mix of red, orange, yellow, or blue and white florets.

[4] In the United States, lantanas are invasive in the southeast, especially coastal regions of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and the Gulf Coast.

The spread of lantana is aided by the fact that their leaves are poisonous to most animals and thus avoided by herbivores, while their fruit is a delicacy for many birds, including the yellow-fronted white-eye of Vanuatu, the superb fairy-wren in Australia, the scaly-breasted munia, and the Mauritius bulbul in the Mascarenes; these distribute the seeds and thereby unwittingly contribute to the degradation of their home ecosystem.

Hesperiidae (skippers) and certain brush-footed butterflies (namely Danainae and Heliconiinae), as well as some Pieridae (e.g. cloudless sulphur, Phoebis sennae), Lycaenidae (e.g. the aforementioned lantana scrub-hairstreak), and Nymphalidae (e.g. Greta oto) also like to visit the plants' flowers.

Consequently, as total eradication of Lantana seems often impossible, it may in many cases be better to simply remove plants with immature (green) fruit to prevent them from spreading.

In Australia it has been found that removing Lantana from urban greenspaces can have negative impacts on bird diversity locally, as it provides refuge for species like the superb fairy (Malurus cyaneus) and silvereye (Zosterops lateralis) in the absence of native plant equivalents.

[5] There seems to be a density threshold in which too much Lantana (thus homogeneity in vegetation cover) can lead to a decrease in bird species richness or abundance.

Lantana species, especially L. camara,[7] contain pentacyclic triterpenoids that cause hepatotoxicity and photosensitivity when ingested by grazing animals such as sheep, goats, bovines,[8] and horses.

[8] Lantana species are widely cultivated for their flowers in tropical and subtropical environments and (as an annual plant) in temperate climates.