Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Account for Common Periwinkle - Vinca minor   L.
Members of Apocynaceae:
Members of Vinca with account distribution info or public map:
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Section 6 » Order Gentianales » Family Apocynaceae
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AuthorL.
DistributionThroughout the Mountains and Piedmont; scarce in the Coastal Plain. Reported twice from the Outer Banks of Dare County, but specimens have not been seen. First collected as a roadside escape in 1931 in Buncombe County by Nellie Haynie; then in 1933 in Orange County and 1937 in Wake County.

Native of Europe; in N.A. throughout the US and southern Canada, except the northernmost Plains and some Rocky Mountain states.
AbundanceFrequent to common in the Piedmont and Mountains; rare in the Coastal Plain. Has the ability to form large patches that persist for decades in shady to semi-shady situations, becoming a troubling weed in some natural areas.
HabitatRoadsides, lawn weed, campus weed, cemeteries, disturbed woods, floodplain woods, pine woods. In woods, probably most frequent where there was a former homesite.
PhenologyFlowering and fruiting April-June.
IdentificationThis often-seen essentially evergreen species is very much like Bigleaf Periwinkle (V. major), but the leaves are about half as wide and broadly lance-shaped, and the flowers are about 1/2 to 2/3 the size of that species; flowers of both are lavender to blue-violet.
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Global RankGNR
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