Wie FLOWERS OF THE WOODS AND COPSES 
EssENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS :— 
203. Lyszmachia nemorum, .—Stem prostrate, spreading, leaves 
ovate-acute, opposite, flowers yellow, small, axillary, on 1-flowered 
peduncles, filaments free, glabrous. 
Small Periwinkle (Vinca minor, L.) 
The blue flowers of this choice plant adorn the countryside in the 
North Temperate Zone in Europe, South of Denmark generally, but 
not in Greece, and W. Asia. In Great Britain it is found in the 
Peninsula, Channel, Thames, and Anglia provinces, except in Hunts; 
Northants, in the Severn province; in S. Wales, only in Glamorgan, 
Pembroke, Carmarthen, Anglesea; in the Trent province, in S. Lincs 
or Derby; throughout the Mersey, Humber, and Tyne provinces; in 
Cumberland and the Isle of Man; in the W. Lowlands, not in Wig- 
town; in the E. Lowlands, only in Berwick, Edinburgh, Linlithgow; 
in the E. Highlands, in Perth, Forfar, S. Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, and 
E. Sutherland. 
It is often only naturalized. Watson regards it as a denizen, and 
says he has not seen it in a certainly native state, though quasi-wild.in 
many counties. 
The Small Periwinkle, suspected as it is of running wild from 
gardens, &c., is found in all parts of the country in woodlands, espe- 
cially small plantations of no considerable antiquity, where it grows 
amongst herbage and trees in tangled profusion, but certainly it 
usually suggests that originally it was planted. 
The trailing habit of this pretty wild flower causes it to be over- 
looked. The stems are lying down, rooting, simple, smooth. The 
leaves are opposite, stalked, like Privet, oval, acute, with a smooth 
margin. 
The flowers are a beautiful blue colour, at length falling, borne 
on erect flower-stalks, with a white eye, inclined to be double. The 
smooth calyx is only about a third as long as the corolla and does 
not fall. The corolla is cup-like with the tube spreading above, 
below cylindrical. 
The plant is 4 ft. in length when luxuriant. It is in flower 
between March and September. It is an evergreen trailer, propa- 
gated by seed. 
Sprengel supposed it was pollinated by 777s transferring pollen 
from the anthers to the stigma by creeping in and out, but it was 
observed by Darwin that an insect inserting a long thin proboscis 
