THE LESSER PERIWINKLE— continued. 
In his Herbal (1551) he adds that Vinca pervinca or Periwincle “ groweth wylde 
in the west cuntre.” 
The smaller species ( V . minor Linne) is distinguished from the larger ( V . major 
Linne), which has no claim to be considered a native British plant, by the rooting 
of its prostrate stems, and by the absence of a fringe of hairs on the margins of 
the leaves and the sepals. 
The tough, round, trailing stems of Vinca minor are often from one to two feet 
in length ; and the flowers are produced in May and June on short erect branches. 
White, red-purple, and double flowers occur in gardens and forms with leaves 
variegated with white or yellow ; but the wild plant is very rarely any colour but a 
light violet. The tube of the salver-shaped corolla is eleven millimetres long, 
and the honey is secreted by two yellow glands at the base of the ovary and is 
protected from rain and probably from small insect marauders by hairs lining the 
throat of the corolla-tube. The stamens are attached about half-way up this tube : 
their short filaments bend inwards in a knee-like form below the stigmatic disk ; 
and the introrse anthers extend above it, terminating in an expanded hairy connective. 
The two carpels, very small in the flower stage, are separate in the ovarian region, 
but unite above into a remarkable little style and stigma which resembles a shaving- 
brush. The style thickens upwards and is surmounted by a structure resembling 
the capital of a column. The lower surface and edges of this are stigmatic ; the 
upper part is covered with minute hairs. The flowers are scentless ; but are freely 
visited by bees and long-tongued flies which can force their heads as far as the 
stigma, so that they only require a proboscis eight millimetres long in order to 
reach the honey. The anthers discharge their pollen inwards on to the collecting 
hairs above the stigma which it is prevented from reaching by the expanded disk 
and the knee-like filaments blocking the corolla-tube. The insect-visitors, however, 
thrust their tongues between the stamens and on withdrawing them sticky with 
honey carry some of the pollen again to the stigma of another flower. The 
Periwinkle, however, seems seldom to ripen its fruit in England. When it does so, 
the fruit consists of two elongated curved follicles, each containing a number of 
black tuberculate seeds. 
Though generally found wild in woods on a warm sandy soil, Periwinkles can 
be readily cultivated in soil of any character, and their glossy leaves and bright 
flowers are useful for covering banks or rockwork and afford an excellent house- 
decoration in midwinter. 
