PERIWINKLE. 171 



Sussex coa t, we have never found a single seed. 

 Tournefoot says that he never saw any fruit in 

 Provence or Languedoc, where the Periwinkle is 

 very common, nor about Lisbon. Miller procured 

 seeds by cutting off all the lateral shoots, and 

 Ca?salpinus obtained the fruit by setting the plant 

 in a pot, with little earth. 



It would appear that nature wisely checked the 

 formation of the seed of this plant, that propagates 

 itself so rapidly by other means ; for was it as pro- 

 ductive of seed as many other plants, it would soon 

 occupy more space on the earth than seems destined 

 for any one species of plant : yet we have never 

 dissected a flower where the parts of fructification 

 appear to be so admirably adapted to secure them- 

 selves from the inclemency of the weather, or the 

 intrusion of insects, as the parts of the Periwinkle 

 flower. One of the striking beauties of this flower 

 consists in the large pentagonal mouth of the tube, 

 the angles of which point to the centre of the petals, 

 or rather to the centre of each of the five segments 

 of the corolla. To obviate the inconvenience of 

 this large mouth, the tube lessens where the anthers 

 are fixed, and each of the five anthers are termi- 

 nated by a membrane, so shaped, that as they bend 

 over at the top, they form a dome that effectually 

 secludes every thing that might injure either the 

 stigma or the anthers. The style of this flower is 



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