THE PERIWINKLE FAMILY 
[ORDER XLIX. APOCYNACEyE] 
NLY two members of this tribe are found in the British Isles and but few in Europe, its 
true home being in the tropics, where it is represented by numerous herbs, creepers, 
shrubs, and trees, which are usually evergreen. 
Many species are cultivated in greenhouses, such as the beautiful but poisonous Oleander 
(Nerium Oleander), an evergreen shrub of southern Europe, the Mandevilla, Allamandas, and 
Dipladenias of South America, and various other exotic species. Many members are poisonous ; 
the Landolphia of Africa, the Hancornia of Brazil, and the Willoughbeia of the Malay Peninsula 
yield india-rubber ; while Strophanthus hispidus and Aspidosperma Quebrancho are useful in 
medicine. 
A purely exotic tribe very near akin to the Periwinkle Family is the Asclepias Family 
(Asclepiadaceae), many members of which adorn our greenhouses. They differ from the Peri- 
winkle Family in the stamens having no filaments, the anthers adhering to the strange table-like 
prolongation of the stigma, and in the curious disposition of the pollen, which hangs in two bags 
on the under side of each anther, rather like the pollinia of the orchids. The members of the 
order are generally climbers or epiphytes. The best known hot-house representative genera being 
the Stephanotus, Asclepias, the Stapelia (leafless succulent cactus-like inhabitants of South Africa), 
Hoya, Cynanchum, and Periploca. 
PERIWINKLE. (VINCA. Linn.) — The only genus found in the British Isles. The flowers 
are funnel- or salver-shaped, blue, purplish, or white, solitary, on long slender stalks, in the axils 
of the leaves. Calyx of 5 sepals, long and narrow, only united at the base, remaining with the 
fruit (persistent), free from and inserted below the seedcase (inferior) ; corolla of 5 petals, united 
into a long funnel-shaped tube and spreading into 5 flat lobes, twisted in bud, inserted below the 
seedcase (hypogynous) ; stamens 5, included in and inserted on the corolla-tube (epi-petalous) ; 
carpels 2, uniting above the 2 seed-cells into a style which is crowned with a ring-like stigma ; 
fruit of 2 erect, slender, many-seeded follicles, which open down one side to free the seeds. 
Slender herbs with opposite entire leaves and often with trailing stems. 
(1) ^Greater Periwinkle. (Vin'ca mijor.) — Flowers large; calyx-lobes as long as the corolla- 
tube and fringed with hairs ; leaves large and broad, fringed with hairs. 
(2) Lesser Periwinkle. (Vin'ca minor.)— Flowers smaller ; calyx-lobes shorter than the 
corolla-tubes and not fringed with hairs ; leaves smaller and narrower and not 
fringed with hairs. 
3* 
