72 FLOWERS OF THE WOODS AND COPSES 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



203. Lysimachia nemorum, L. Stem prostrate, spreading, leaves 

 ovate-acute, opposite, flowers yellow, small, axillary, on i -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. Lines 

 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 Thrips 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 



