I walk by a creek next to my church, and there is a giant pot with a mound of periwinkles. Beautiful! I have grown periwinkles in the flower bed outside my floor-to-ceiling breakfast room window. They did very well because the area is usually in partial shade with morning sun most of the time. It is like the brightly colored pinwheel-like flowers are constantly smiling at you. Just makes you feel good to wake up and see the flowers there to greet you. I have heard of the color periwinkle blue which is somewhere on the lighter side of the scale from dark blue to light blue. Let’s learn more about periwinkles.
Accoding to Wikipedia, Catharanthus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae. Like the genus Vinca, they are known commonly as periwinkles. There are eight known species. Seven are endemic to Madagascar, though one — C. roseus — is widely naturalized around the world. The eighth species, C. pusillus, is native to India and Sri Lanka. The name Catharanthus comes from the Greek for "pure flower."
These are perennial herbs with oppositely or almost oppositely arranged leaves. Flowers are usually solitary in the leaf axils. Each has a calyx with five long, narrow lobes and a corolla with a tubular throat and five lobes.
Catharanthus roseus, known formerly as Vinca rosea, is a main source of vinca alkaloids, now sometimes called catharanthus alkaloids. The plant produces about 130 of these compounds, including vinblastine and vincristine, two drugs used to treat cancer.
Catharanthus roseus is also cultivated as an ornamental plant in gardens. Several cultivars have been bred to produce flowers in many shades of pink, red, lilac and white or in light shades with dark throats. Seed dispersal is by ant, wind and water. Catharanthus roseus is pollinated by butterflies and moths.
Select species
Catharanthus ovalis
Catharanthus ovalis is a species of flowering plant in the dogbane family, Apocynaceae. It is endemic to Madagascar.
First published as a species in 1970, several subspecies or varieties have been proposed, however none are now recognized.
Catharanthus pusillus
Catharanthus pusillus, commonly known as the tiny periwinkle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It is native to India and Sri Lanka.
Catharanthus roseus
Catharanthus roseus, commonly known as bright eyes, Cape periwinkle, graveyard plant, Madagascar periwinkle, old maid, pink periwinkle or rose periwinkle is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It is native and endemic to Madagascar, but grown elsewhere as an ornamental and medicinal plant. It is a source of the drugs vincristine and vinblastine, used to treat cancer. It was formerly included in the genus Vinca as Vinca rosea.
Description
Catharanthus roseus is an evergreen subshrub or herbaceous plant growing 39 inches tall. The leaves are oval to oblong, 1.0–3.5 inches long and 0.4–1.4 inches broad, glossy green, hairless, with a pale midrib and a short petiole 0.4–0.7 inches long; they are arranged in opposite pairs. The flowers are white to dark pink with a darker red center, with a basal tube 1.0–1.2 inches long and a corolla 0.8–2.0 inches in diameter with five petal-like lobes. The fruit is a pair of follicles 0.8–1.6 inches long and 0.1 inches broad.
Ecology
In the wild, C. roseus is an endangered plant; the main cause of decline is habitat destruction by slash-and-burn agriculture. It is also, however, widely cultivated and is naturalized in subtropical and tropical areas of the world like Australia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is so well adapted to growth in Australia that it is listed as a noxious weed in Western Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, and also in parts of eastern Queensland.
Cultivation
As an ornamental plant, it is appreciated for its hardiness in dry and nutritionally deficient conditions, popular in subtropical gardens where temperatures never fall below 41–45 °F, and as a warm-season bedding plant in temperate gardens. It is noted for its long flowering period, throughout the year in tropical conditions, and from spring to late autumn, in warm temperate climates. Full sun and well-drained soil are preferred. Numerous cultivars have been selected for variation in flower color — white, mauve, peach, scarlet and reddish-orange — and also for tolerance of cooler growing conditions in temperate regions. Notable cultivars include 'Albus' (white flowers), 'Grape Cooler' (rose-pink; cool-tolerant), the Ocellatus Group (various colors) and 'Peppermint Cooler' (white with a red center; cool-tolerant). In the U.S. it often remains identified as "Vinca" although botanists have shifted its identification, and it often can be seen growing along roadsides in the south.
In the UK it has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit, confirmed 2017.
Traditional uses
The species has long been cultivated for herbal medicine, as it can be traced back to 2600 B.C.E. Mesopotamia. In Ayurveda or Indian traditional medicine, the extracts of its roots and shoots — though poisonous — are used against several diseases. In traditional Chinese medicine, extracts from it have been used against numerous diseases, including diabetes, malaria and Hodgkin's lymphoma. In the 1950s, vinca alkaloids, including vinblastine and vincristine, were isolated from Catharanthus roseus when screening for anti-diabetic drugs. This chance discovery led to increased research into the chemotheraputic effects of vinblastine and vincristine. Conflict between historical indigenous use, and recent patents on C.roseus-derived drugs by western pharmaceutical companies — without compensation — has led to accusations of biopiracy.
Medicinal use
Vinblastine and vincristine — chemotherapy medications used to treat several types of cancers — are found in the plant and are biosynthesised from the coupling of the alkaloids catharanthine and vindoline. The newer semi-synthetic chemotherapeutic agent vinorelbine — used in the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer — can be prepared either from vindoline and catharanthine or from the vinca alkaloid leurosine, in both cases via anhydrovinblastine. The insulin-stimulating vincoline has been isolated from the plant.
C. roseus can be extremely toxic if consumed orally by humans and is cited under its synonym Vinca rosea in the Louisiana State Act 159.
Research
Despite the medical importance and wide use, the desire alkaloids — vinblastine and vincristine — are naturally produced at very low yields. Additionally, it is complex and costly to synthesize the desired products in a lab, resulting in difficulty satisfying the demand and a need for overproduction. Treatment of the plant with phytohormones, such as salicylic acid and methyl jasmonate have been shown to trigger defense mechanisms and overproduce downstream alkaloids. Studies utilizing this technique vary in growth conditions, choice of phytohormone and location of treatment. Concurrently, there are various efforts to map the biosynthetic pathway producing the alkaloids to find a direct path to overproduction via genetic engineering.
C. roseus is used in plant pathology as an experimental host for phytoplasmas. This is because it is easy to infect with a large majority of phytoplasmas and also often has very distinctive symptoms such as phyllody and significantly reduced leaf size.
Biology
Rosinidin is the pink anthocyanidin pigment found in the flowers of C. roseus. Lochnericine is a major alkaloid in roots.
Vinca major
Vinca major, with the common names bigleaf periwinkle, large periwinkle, greater periwinkle and blue periwinkle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae, native to the western Mediterranean. Growing to 10 inches tall and spreading indefinitely, it is an evergreen perennial, frequently used in cultivation as ground cover.
Vinca minor
Vinca minor — common names lesser periwinkle or dwarf periwinkle — is a species of flowering plant in the dogbane family, native to central and southern Europe, from Portugal and France north to the Netherlands and the Baltic States, east to the Caucasus, and also southwestern Asia in Turkey. Other vernacular names used in cultivation include small periwinkle, common periwinkle, and sometimes in the United States, myrtle or creeping myrtle.
Vinca herbacea
Vinca herbacea — with common name herbaceous periwinkle — is a flowering plant native to eastern and southeastern Europe, from Austria south to Greece, and east to the Crimea, and also in northern Western Asia, in the Caucasus and Alborz mountains. It grows mainly in steppe habitats.
Periwinkle Care
According to Becca Badgett’s article “Periwinkle Care – How to Grow Periwinkle Plants” at gardeningknowhow.com, periwinkle is most often grown as a ground cover. The periwinkle plant takes its common name from the attractive blooms that dot the foliage in April to May, appearing in the color of periwinkle blue. More than 30 varieties of this plant exist, some with variegated foliage and other bloom colors. When planting periwinkle, choose what best suits your landscape.
This broad-leaf evergreen plant grows easily, and periwinkle care most often involves keeping the prolific spreader in check. Periwinkle, once established, is drought-resistant and needs little other care if properly sited in the landscape. Periwinkle care after planting may require the removal of tall weeds in the area. Once established, growing periwinkle will likely shade out future growth of weeds and eliminate this chore.
The periwinkle plant grows best in a partially shaded area in acidic soil; however, it can thrive in a variety of sunlight and soil conditions. Growing periwinkle in partial shade creates more vigorous growth. In many instances, extreme vigor may not be desirable unless the periwinkle plant needs to cover a large area. One small plant can spread to 8 feet across.
Growing periwinkle as a ground cover is common, as it rarely reaches more than 4 inches in height. Periwinkle is best used for controlling erosion. Do not plant near other specimens in the flower bed or garden, as it may overtake and choke out valuable plantings. This plant may be used as a climber on a non-living support and is useful for blocking views when used in this way. Before planting periwinkle, make sure it is what you want in the area, as it is difficult to remove once established. Periwinkle appears low on the exotic invasive list but can escape cultivation in the garden. In fact, the plant may be problematic in some areas, so be sure to check its status in your region.
According to A Wandering Botanist blog post “Plant Story—the Merry Periwinkle, Vinca” at khkeelerblogspot.com, the name periwinkle began as vincapervinca, the name in Latin that Pliny the Elder used in the first century AD. Pervinca is from vincire, to bind or entwine — ancestor of our English words vine and bind. In Middle English it had become pervenke and in Modern English periwinkle. The seashell, by the way, started out called pina, its colloquial Latin name, to which Old English added wincel, a seashell. Pinawincel morphed into periwinkle, converging with the plant name.
Pliny the Elder, in his "Natural History," described periwinkles as used for "chaplets when there is a deficiency of other flowers," the creeping nature of the plant allowing them to be easily woven into circlets. Periwinkles are evergreen in most of Europe so are available all year for chaplets. Chaplets, circlets of leaves or flowers for the head, were very common in Europe from Roman times through the Middle Ages but have largely been forgotten. The lore of periwinkles expanded so that they became a symbol of both immortality and love between husband and wife. The former perhaps follows because it is evergreen, the latter because it easily twines. In medieval Europe periwinkles were frequently made into garlands for the burial of children and planted on graves. Furthermore, periwinkle branches adorned the condemned. An English rhyme went "Crowned one with laurel leaves hye on his head set other with pervink made for the giblet."
Periwinkles have a rich history in Europe, having been used medicinally since at least Roman times. Dioscorides in 64 AD wrote that the leaves and stalks drunk in wine stop dysentery and chewed, the leaves cure the pains of the teeth. Gerard in his “Herball” in 1633 endorsed periwinkle leaves crushed in red wine to stop bloody flux or dysentery and spitting of blood because it "never faileth in any bodie, either man or woman." He said it likewise stopped excessive menstrual bleeding.
Less dramatic uses of periwinkles for love included tying them into "love knots." In the wedding poem,
"Something old, Something new, Something borrowed, Something blue," the something blue was widely interpreted as referring to periwinkles, which, ideally, were wrapped around the bride's thigh as a garter, for a fertile marriage. Beyond that, newlyweds planted periwinkles in the garden to ensure a long and happy marriage.
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