PERIWINKLE
Perennial evergreen plant with rooting stems up to 30-60 cm long, wintering leaves, leathery, elliptical, on short petioles. Flowers on short erect twigs, blue, solitary, within 2.5 cm in diameter, five-membered, with a calyx bare along the edge, funnel-shaped corolla, with a thick pubescent stigma. The fruit is two multi-seeded cylindrical leaflets. Blooms in May-June.
Occasionally bred as an ornamental plant, found in parks in a wild state. As a wild plant, it is found throughout the temperate zone of Russia and throughout Europe; in Ukraine it grows mainly in the groves of the Right Bank.
Based on popular experience, periwinkle is used as a tonic, astringent, slightly hemostatic and somewhat laxative.
The plant is considered poisonous (heart poison), so a strict dosage of products is required.
Periwinkle leaves are used very infrequently in scientific medicine – externally as an astringent and healing agent.
It is popularly used internally for halitosis, scurvy, bronchitis, enteritis (inflammation of the small intestines), colitis (inflammation of the large intestines), and toothache. Outwardly – with bleeding.
Application
Decoction: 10 g per 200 ml, take 1 tbsp. spoon three times every day, infusion of herbs.
Root tincture: 20%, take 5 drops 3 times daily.
Outwardly: a decoction is used, and if a tincture is used, then diluted in a ratio of 1:10.
Less common is another type of periwinkle – the herbaceous periwinkle, which differs from the small periwinkle in the leaves falling for the winter and sepals ciliated along the edges. During flowering and fruiting, the stems of the plant take root with their tops. The stem has positive geotropism.
It is used by the people for stomach ulcers, externally – in the treatment of purulent wounds and itchy dermatitis.