THE LESSER PERIWINKLE. 6 



Southern English counties at "least, having probably been 

 introduced by man at an early date (Chaucer mentions " fresh 

 pervinke rich of hew "), and taken care to keep the foothold 

 thus obtained. Its favourite position is a woodland bank, 

 which it thickly covers with its dark evergreen leaves. Hooker 

 ("Students' Flora," p. 268) describes the flowering stems as 

 short and erect, and the peduncles not so long as the diameter 

 of the corolla. As a matter of fact, the long trailing and rooting 

 stems also bear flowers, and the peduncles vary in length from 

 J to 2 inches. 



The petals are united for half their length to form a tube, and 

 the five free lobes are oblique. The structure and arrangement 

 of the stamens and pistil are very curious, and evidently have 

 relation to cross-fertilization by insects, for the throat of the 

 corolla-tube is closely guarded by a fringe of silky hairs, 

 impassable by the thrips that vainly haunt the mouth in quest 

 of pollen. The plant rarely, if ever, produces seed in this 

 country, and this indicates that the insects necessary to its 

 fertilization are not British. Flowers, April and May, and 

 sparingly throughout the year. 



The Greater Periwinkle ( Vinca major) is also naturalized in 

 places. It is much larger in every respect than V. minor. 

 The name of the genus is supposed to have been derived from 

 the Latin Vintio, to bind or connect, in allusion to the manner 

 in which its trailing stems thrust down a root from every node. 



The Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria). 



As soon as there comes a slackening of the iron rule of 

 winter, whether it be early in February or late in March, then 

 on sunny banks and at the feet of pasture-hedges, or on waste- 

 ground by the roadside, the burnished gold stars of the Lesser 

 Celandine glitter in the wintry sunshine It is a charming little 

 plant in its brightness and compactness, and not in the least 



