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Bigleaf Periwinkle / Zimzelen

Vinca major L.

Description:

It is an herbaceous, perennial, rhizomatous and stoloniferous flowering plant. It is also evergreen trailing vine (here the reason for Croatian name Zimzelen), spreading along the ground and rooting along the stems to form dense masses of ground cover individually 2 - 5 m across and scrambling up to 50 - 70 cm high. The leaves are opposite, nearly orbicular at the base of the stems and lanceolate at the apex, 3 - 9 cm long and 2 - 6 cm broad, glossy dark green with a leathery texture and an entire but distinctly ciliate margin, and a hairy petiole 1 - 2 cm long. The flowers are hermaphrodite, axillary and solitary, violet-purple, 3 - 5 cm diameter, with a five-lobed corolla. The calyx surrounding the base of the flower is 10 - 17 mm long with hairy margins. The flowering period extends from early spring to autumn.

Habitat:

This species native to southern Europe and northern Africa is distributed from Spain and southern France east to the western Balkans, and also in northeastern Turkey and the western Caucasus. It prefers moist undergrowth, woodlands, hedgerows and banks along the rivers at an altitude of 0–800 m above sea level. It grows well in full sun and in deep shade.

Notes:

Other names: Large Periwinkle, Greater Periwinkle, Blue Periwinkle. In traditional medicine it was used for "cleaning" and strengthening the blood, to stop bleeding, for blood-related diseases, intestines problems, stomach pain, high blood pressure, rheumatism, and for inducing vomiting.

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3 Comments

injica
injica 9 years ago

Maybe you can also leave a note somewhere, e.g. FAQ would be a suitable place for matters like that. It would definitely bring some formality and structure and reliability thus contribute the image of noah?!

DanielePralong
DanielePralong 9 years ago

Hi injica! The chat facility unfortunately ceased to be supported by its third party provider. Project Noah is looking for a suitable replacement. I hope savinaponziani sees your comment. If the problem persists I'll leave a comment on one of her spottings once she makes one.

injica
injica 9 years ago

Questions to rangers, where is this chat that was usually at the bottom of the page? I mean can someone explain to this user that identified species do not need to be re-identified if agreed on the same identification.

injica
Spotted by
injica

Zagreb, Croatia

Spotted on Apr 14, 2013
Submitted on Apr 14, 2013

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