Periwinkle (plant)

Vinca is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae, native to Europe, northwest Africa and southwest Asia. The English name periwinkle.

Vinca Flower. Provided by Classroom Clip Art (http://classroomclipart.com)
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Vinca Flower. Provided by Classroom Clip Art (http://classroomclipart.com)

Vinca plants are subshrubs or herbaceous, and have slender trailing stems. The stems frequently take root where they touch the ground, enabling the plant to spread widely. The leaves are opposite, simple broad laneolate to ovate, broad; they are evergreen in four species, but deciduous in the herbaceous V. herbacea, which dies back to the root system in winter.

The flowers, produced through most of the growing season, are simple, broad, with five usually violet petals joined together at the base to form a tube. The fruit consists of a pair of divergent follicles; the dry fruit dehisces along one rupture site to release seeds.

Two of the species, Vinca major and Vinca minor, are extensively cultivated as a flowering evergreen ornamental plant. Because the plants are low and spread quickly, they are often used as groundcover in garden landscapes and container gardens.

Medical Use. The vinca alkaloids include at least 86 alkaloids extracted from plants in the genus Vinca. The chemotherapy agent vincristine is extracted from a closely related species, Catharanthus roseus, and is used to treat some leukemias, lymphomas, and childhood cancers, as well as several other types of cancer and some non-cancerous conditions.

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