Growing Periwinkle Or Pink Catharanthus

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Ask why I did not appreciate the Soviet power? The distant school years immediately pop up in my memory, and the first in the hierarchy of rejection of communism is the case when from the first to the fourth grade we, Leningrad schoolchildren, were forcibly forced to subscribe and read the Barvinok magazine. You say, what's wrong with that? Indeed, a children's magazine, illustrated, but … in Ukrainian.

For a long time I tortured my grandfather, a pure-bred Ukrainian, who had lived all his life in Abkhazia, what kind of "beast" this is, I thought, something like our Murzilka. My grandfather portrayed a difficult thought process on his face and explained to me that this was, they say, such a drinking establishment, obviously confusing periwinkle with "budynka", and both of them with a shank. Oh, I thought, if I get this periwinkle, I will clean his face for all the insults.

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Already in my student years, I found out that this is just a nondescript red flower, similar to a flax flower or phlox, if the latter did not bloom with a panicle, but piece by piece. I happened to see the periwinkle after many years.

Once in Moscow I went to the editorial office of a farming magazine, for which I had been writing articles on poultry farming for many years. She went in and gasped. The whole office was literally buried in flowers. "Did the Green Peace terrorists detonate a green bomb here?" - I joked, but no one reacted. I was reluctantly explained that the flowers were brought by American colleagues. "Those are stupid," I thought in the spirit of Zadornov, "they could at least bring different ones, otherwise they are all the same." And aloud I asked what this miracle of nature was called. "Periwinkle or pink catharanthus" - they answered me. So that's what you are, a scarlet flower!

A year later, I learned that periwinkle is a symbol of the fight against cancer. Americans believe that as long as the periwinkle blooms in a house where there is a cancer patient, he will not die. Therefore, the editor, who had to endure the hardest course of chemotherapy, received such a strange gift.

The deep faith of the sick, their friends and relatives in the magical properties of the catharanthus has a very real foundation. The leaves of periwinkle contain more than 60 alkaloids, the most interesting of which is vinblastine, in domestic pharmacology it is the drug "Rosevin", which is used to maintain remissions caused by chemotherapeutic agents, as well as in the treatment of radiation sickness.

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Pink catharanthus (Vinca rosea) is an evergreen shrub plant of the kutrovy family, 30-60 cm high. Distributed in all tropical and subtropical countries. It is also growing in our Krasnodar Territory. As the potted culture is extremely popular with Americans and Australians, Europeans only produce periwinkle when someone in the family is sick.

In pharmacology, plant leaves are used. In folk medicine, a decoction of leaves was used to treat migraines and hypertension, but this decoction must be used with great knowledge of the matter, otherwise you can cause irreparable harm to health!

The small periwinkle (Vinca minor) is also known. It is a ground cover creeping shrub native to the forests of Europe and the Caucasus. Cover height - 10-15 cm. Stems root easily at the ends of the shoots. Leaves are leathery, dark green, shiny. The flowers are lilac. By the way, this plant can be found in some of our gardens.

It is very useful to keep periwinkle on the windowsill, because it has not only cytotoxic activity, but also antimicrobial activity. In addition, it is a very beautiful, long and abundantly flowering plant. For some reason it is not very common among our flower growers, but in fact, in theory, periwinkle should take its place of honor in the "pharmacy on the windowsill" next to the golden mustache, Indian onions and aloe.

It should be noted that periwinkle flowers are not only pink, but also carmine red, white, white with a red center and pink with a red center. Leaves are shiny, noble green with a light waxy bloom.

The plant is light-loving, prefers high humidity and light, well-fertilized soils, does not tolerate drafts. Do not be alarmed, I have a glazed loggia, on which, even in December, the periwinkle feels great and blooms profusely. If you only have a windowsill, then you need to spray the flower every day - that's all. Periwinkle is tenacious and hardy, it just won't bloom in bad conditions, it will stretch out and drop the leaves.

I did not try to propagate catharanthus cuttings, every time I sowed seeds, it is just that more and more varieties are appearing on the market, rumors reached me that the Americans had already bred a terry form.

I sincerely advise readers to have a catharanthus in their home, and in different colors. If you put them in one pot, it looks very nice. It will purify the air you breathe. And if suddenly, with someone, God forbid, of course, trouble happens, it will give him hope for recovery, because while the periwinkle is blooming, no one should die.