Common Periwinkle is an introduced mildly invasive perennial trailing vine without tendrils. Its stems lie prostrate on the ground forming a dense mat. Shoots are slender, green and root at the nodes.

The leaves are firm, glossy ever-green, opposite, elliptical to ovate, up to 1 inch long and half as wide. The tips are blunt to acute, the base tapered to a short stalk. Margins are smooth and the area of the midvein is a lighter color. The underside is slightly paler in color but glossy also.

Inflorescence: Flowers are solitary, stalked and arise from the leaf axil.

The flowers are about 1 inch wide, with bluish-purple corollas that form a funnel shape with the 5 petals spreading outward from the top of the funnel. The spreading parts of the petals are wedge shaped, broadest at the tip, with fused bases forming the funnel. They are slightly asymmetrical producing a pinwheel effect as though the corolla were rapidly rotating about the center and suddenly stopped. The inside of the corolla has fine hair at the throat, the outside is smooth. Inside the throat of the corolla but not exserted are five stamens with green filaments and yellow anthers. Stamens are opposite the petals and joined together in the throat of the corolla with the anthers folding around the single green style with a stigmatic disc at the top that has fine white hair but the actual stigma lies on the underside of the disc preventing self fertilization. The outer short green calyx has five long pointed lobes.

Seed: Fertile flowers can produce a pair of one inch long pods (follicles) that contain a few dark seeds but most flowers do not produce the pods as the plant reproduces mostly from root system.

Habitat: Common Periwinkle grows from a woody, shallow, rhizomatous root system, which produces underground runners and forms a dense mat via the runners and rooting along the stem nodes. Thus, in the home garden it may require some control. It tolerates a variety of soils from moist to slightly dry conditions. It does well in light shade or partial sun but not full sun. In the Wildflower Garden, the plant is a ground cover on Violet Way in the Woodland Garden, extensively covering the hillside. As the plant only grows from 3 to 6 inches in height, it makes a good ground cover for shady areas under trees. Popular for many years, the plant is an escapee from cultivation and in some states such as Wisconsin and Tennessee is considered in the wild to be weedy and invasive.

Names: The genus name, Vinca, is from the Latin vincio, meaning 'to bind', and referring to the shoots that can root. The species, minor, simply means the smaller, used when there is a similar species that is larger - in this case Vinca major, the Bigleaf Periwinkle. The author name for the plant classification, 'L.', refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy. Vinca minor is in the same plant family as the Milkweeds.

The common name of 'periwinkle' is also derived from the Latin root. In old Anglo-Saxon it was 'parwynke,' and sometimes called 'Joy of the Ground' all referring to the rooting stems. The other old common name of 'running myrtle,' apparently comes from the Myrtle plant of the Mediterranean which is evergreen and has shiny leaves. Our species here, V. minor has shiny leaves and is evergreen, and creeps along the ground as it roots. The word 'running' is frequently applied to creeping plants - hence 'running myrtle.'

Comparisons: Vinca minor is the only species of Vinca found in Minnesota, thus V. major will not be encountered here.