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Native to Hispaniola and Cuba. Extremely heat tolerant. So heat tolerant in fact that it dies back from cold in USDA zone 9! It prefers zones 10-11. Drought tolerant once established. Loves full sun.
Member of the spurge family so it is toxic in all the same ways a poinsettia is. Leaves, roots, stems, flowers, especially seeds. Introduced to my area of the Gulf coast but not considered invasive.
Peregrina means pilgrim, so I wonder if it wanders/is invasive in other areas, its name refers to something else
That's interesting to know. It's all over the place here. In brush thickets, sidewalk cracks, waters edge, etc. it's just all over the place. Monarch, Swallowtail, and honeybees just love this stuff. I have some in a terra cotta 10 gallon pot next to some planted Lantana and the bees and butterflies just can't get enough of the plant. It blooms year round and the pollinators know it. Incidentally, it is spreading, but very very slowly. It finally jumped its container after having it for a dozen years or so, so not too terribly invasive from my anecdata.
I'm glad the pollinators love it. Also yeah lantana is an invasive species of national significance where I live too, lovely flower but it just steadily takes over. They named a movie after it
That's neat to hear. There's two types here in Texas, Common Lantana, which is the white/pink/blue flowers, and Wild Lantana which is yellow/orange/red. The Wild is native here while the Common is considered invasive because it supposedly outgrows the wild one but i see them both about the same frequency. The Common also feeds the same pollinators as the Wild so who even knows.
~~Maybe it means "foreign"?~~
I got so caught up in googling "peregrine falcon" that I actually forgot what you said. Anyway - here's this...
How did a peregrine falcon get its name?
The peregrine falcon is one of nature's swiftest and most beautiful birds of prey. Its name comes from the Latin word peregrinus, meaning "foreigner" or "traveler."
Interesting! My Spanish isn't the best, so I didn't know that for species that Peregrina could also mean 'foreign'. The meaning of wandering/travelling makes sense/related to pilgrim