Common Wildflowers of Hong Kong - A familiar face - Lantana

In preparation for writing an article about ten common wildflowers in Hong Kong, I used an AI chatbot to generate a list to help me. At first glance, I was impressed by the speed at which it compiled this information. However, upon closer inspection, I only recognised one of these flowers as “common”, so much for having all the grunt work done for me by an AI.

Common Lantana (Lantana Camara), you will have seen it all over Hong Kong’s subtropical welcoming landscape, poking its flowery branches through wire fences or colonising those earthy tranches of unkempt green land between pavements and estates. I already know (through googling it when I came to Hong Kong) that it arrived here due to its ornamental value, and I was also able to guess that it spread by adventitious roots or through birds eating its berries (don’t you even think about it, they are the most toxic part of the plant). I was aghast to know that this familiar plant which I have become quite fond of, is not only harmful to many animals and native plants but also provides a suitable environment for rats. According to ChatGPT, the government is taking steps to combat its spread through education, herbicides and manual removal. I was curious about how the AI arrived at this conclusion. Its promising source list had several links to government websites and an eye-catching scientific journal called Biological Invasions, published by Springer Nature. However, I found that most of these linked pages were no longer working.

So, while my article remains a work in progress, and I am aware of limitations to this new-fangled AI chatbot thing, I am glad that I gained insights into the first entry of my list, Lantana: one down, nine to go.