View source for Vinca

{{Treatment/ID
|accepted_name=Vinca
|accepted_authority=Linnaeus
|publications={{Treatment/Publication
|title=Sp. Pl.
|place=1: 209. 1753
|year=1753
}}
|common_names=Periwinkle
|special_status={{Treatment/ID/Special_status
|code=I
|label=Introduced
}}
|basionyms=
|synonyms=
|hierarchy=Apocynaceae;Vinca
|hierarchy_nav=<div class="higher-taxa"><div class="higher-taxon"><small>family</small>[[Apocynaceae]]</div><div class="higher-taxon"><small>genus</small>[[Vinca]]</div></div>
|etymology=Derivation uncertain; probably Latin vinco, to conquer, or vincio, to bind, alluding to binding and subduing other plants in its habitat
|volume=Volume 14
|mention_page=
|treatment_page=
}}<!--

--><span class="statement" id="st-undefined" data-properties=""><b>Suffrutescent </b>herbs [subshrubs]; latex milky. <b>Stems</b> trailing or ascending [erect], unarmed, glabrous or eglandular-pubescent. <b>Leaves</b> persistent [deciduous], opposite, petiolate; stipular colleters absent; laminar colleters absent. <b>Inflorescences</b> axillary, 1(–4)-flowered, pedunculate. <b>Flowers</b>: calycine colleters absent; corolla blue-purple, blue-violet, violet, reddish purple, or white, rarely pale blue, rotate-funnelform, aestivation sinistrorse; corolline corona absent; androecium and gynoecium not united into a gynostegium; stamens inserted at top of corolla tube; anthers connivent, not adherent to stigma, connectives appendiculate, locules 4; pollen free, not massed into pollinia, translators absent; nectaries 2. <b>Fruits</b> follicles, usually paired, erect, brown, slender, terete to somewhat moniliform, surface striate, glabrous. <b>Seeds</b> narrowly ovoid to elliptic, navicular, not winged, not beaked, not comose, not arillate. <b>x</b> = 23.</span><!--

-->{{Treatment/Body
|distribution=Europe;w Asia;introduced also widely.
|introduced=true
|discussion=<p>Species 7 (2 in the flora).</p><!--
--><p>Several species of Vinca are widely cultivated as ornamentals throughout Europe and North America, but only two of these are treated as naturalized elements of our flora. Vinca herbacea Waldstein & Kitaibel has been collected several times from northwestern Massachusetts but is here considered a waif; it can be distinguished from V. major and V. minor by the entirely herbaceous growth habit, scabrous (versus ciliate or glabrous) leaf margins, and corolla lobes less than 6 mm wide.</p><!--
--><p>In Europe, species of Vinca have long been associated with death, being commonly planted in cemeteries and, during the Middle Ages, used in the making of wreaths that were sometimes worn as a crown by condemned persons on their way to execution.</p>
|tables=
|references=
}}<!--

--><div class="treatment-key">
==Key==
<div class="treatment-key-group">
  
{| class="wikitable fna-keytable"
|-id=key-0-1
|1
|Leaf blade margins ciliate; calyx lobes ciliate, 7–15 mm; seeds 7–10 mm.
|[[Vinca major|Vinca major]]
|-id=key-0-1
|1
|Leaf blade margins not ciliate; calyx lobes not ciliate, 3–4 mm; seeds 5–7 mm.
|[[Vinca minor|Vinca minor]]
|}
</div></div><!--

-->{{#Taxon:
name=Vinca
|author=David E. Lemke
|authority=Linnaeus
|rank=genus
|parent rank=family
|synonyms=
|basionyms=
|family=Apocynaceae
|distribution=Europe;w Asia;introduced also widely.
|introduced=true
|reference=None
|publication title=Sp. Pl.
|publication year=1753
|special status=Introduced
|source xml=
|genus=Vinca
}}<!--

-->[[Category:Treatment]][[Category:Apocynaceae]]