CLASS V. ORDER I.J VINCA. 285 



bruised in wine, they used as an astringent in dysentery, and as a gargle 

 in relaxed sore throat; the bark masticated relieved tooth-ache; made 

 into a plaster it cured the bite of serpents ; and bruised in vinegar it 

 relieved the sting of wasps. 



It has long been the custom amongst the peasantry in Italy to 

 wreath the brow, and, indeed, the whole body of unmarried per- 

 sons, both men and women, as well as children, with this plant, 

 intermixing with it various other evergreens and flowers of different 

 kinds, forming gay garlands, and placing upon the breast a large 

 bunch of the finest flowers that the season will afford ; dressing in 

 fact, the whole body in a vegetable garment, composed of the 

 richest productions of Flora that they can meet with. This prac- 

 tice is still followed, especially amongst the peasantry in the provinces 

 of Tuscany ; and we think it most probable that the generic name of 

 Vinca has been given to it from the circumstance of their using 

 it to bind the bodies of their dead. 



2. V. ma'jor, Linn. (Fig. 360.) greater Periwinkle. Stem sub- 

 erect. Leaves ovate cordate, their margins, as well as those of the 

 linear subulate segments of the calyx, ciliated. 



English Botany, t. 514. English Flora, vol. i. p. 340. Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 114. Lindley, Synopsis, p. 176. 



Root with long creeping underground stems, much branched. 

 Stems numerous, branched and procumbent below, erect above, espe- 

 cially whilst flowering ; round, smooth, and shining, not so long, 

 or SD tough and strong as V. minor, although the plant is much 

 larger in all its parts. Leaves opposite, on short footstalks, of 9. 

 dark shining green, smooth, except the margins being fringed with 

 short white hairs, paler beneath, the lower ones ovate at the apex 

 and base, the upper ovate, attenuated at the apex, rounder, or 

 heart-shaped at the base, the mid-rib rather strong, with numerous 

 slender branched veins, flowers from the axis of the upper leaves, on 

 round, erect, slender, smooth footstalks, half as long as the leaves, 

 elongating after flowering, and reflected. Calyx of five narrow long 

 subulate segments, nearly as long as the tube of the corolla, with a 

 mid-rib, and the margins fringed with pale hairs. Corolla a fine blue 

 or purple, but varying from a dark to a very pale blue, almost white, 

 as large again as the last species, salver-shaped, the tube suddenly 

 contracted in the lower half, striated with longtitudinal veins, the 

 limb spreading, of five flat obliquely truncated segments, frequently 

 two inches across, the mouth of the tube surrounded with five promi- 

 nent angular protuberances. Stamens about the middle of the tube, 

 inserted into the top of the contracted part The filaments short, and 

 acutely angled at their insertion, smooth, but much dilated upwards, 

 with a membraneous margin above, which surrounds and encloses the 

 lower annular part of the stigma. Anther flat, pear-shaped, with a 



