Butter fly Feeding Preferences of Lantana camara Cultivars and Lantana montevidensis ‘Weeping Lavender’ in the Landscape and Nectar Characteristics

Abstract In landscape studies conducted in 2002 and 2003, Lantana camara (L.) ‘New Gold’ and ‘Radiation’ were visited by native butterflies to a greater extent than the remaining eight lantana in the studies. Other lantana visited preferentially but not as consistently included L. camara ‘White Doves’, ‘Firewagon’, ‘Confetti’, and Lantana montevidensis (Spreng.) ‘Weeping Lavender’. In general, the lowest visitation was experienced by L. camara ‘Cherry’ and ‘Carlos’. Total visit duration by one randomly selected butterfly was greater for ‘New Gold’, ‘Radiation’, ‘Firewagon’, and ‘White Doves’ than the remaining lantana. Plant characteristics including inflorescence number, number of flowers per inflorescence, percentage of yellow flowers per inflorescence, growth index, flower morphology, and flower color characteristics differed among cultivars. Cultivar differences that consistently correlated with visitation preferences were inflorescence number in 2002 and 2003, flower number per inflorescence in 2003,...