Our South African friend, Frances, was visiting our home in West Point for the first time. As she mounted the front steps, she glanced to the right, where lantana was blooming in its late-summer glory.
She turned toward me and said, “In South Africa, we’d call that a noxious weed.” She certainly was in a position to know. She had a Ph.D. in Animal, Plant, and Environmental Sciences from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She’d done fieldwork in assessing the dangers of invasive species that flourished in her native country’s mining dumps.
But it was difficult for me to react to the pretty pink-and-orange flowers as she did. I treasured them for the attraction they offered to various species of butterflies.
