**2. Botanical description of big sage (***L. camara* **L.)**

The *Lantana* genus has been described as shrubs of different species as the difference is in flower size, leaf shape and color, stem thorns, growth rates, shade tolerance, toxicity to organisms, chromosome number, and DNA content [21]. The big sage plant belongs to the family Verbenaceae, which includes 100 genera and about 2000 species. The genus Lantana has about 150 species that fall into the group of ornamental plants. As for its flowers, they are small in size and grouped in the form of small bouquets, ranging from 20 to 30 flowers in one inflorescence (**Figure 1**), as well as its fruits are of small size, and its seeds are solid and stone [22]. The *Lantana* shrub is characterized by ribbed stems covered with hairs and curved and sharp spines. It has opposite leaves, aromatic with a strong smell when crushed. This plant has cluster flowers of different colors; they may be white, yellow, pink, red, or orange. Its fruits are cluster aggregate, and each fruit contains a single seed inside it, which at the beginning of its growth takes a bright green color, and then turns to a blackish-purple color when it ripens [23]. These shrubs have many uses in the fields of health, as the oil extracted from the leaves and flowers of this plant has the property of acting as an antimicrobial and as a fungicide or insecticide to combat nematodes [9, 24].

*The Efficiency of Phytoremediation of the Big-Sage Plant in Accumulating Some Heavy Metals… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109640*

**Figure 1.** *The big-sage (*Lantana camara (L.) Czern*.) flowers.*
