Flora-Fauna

Vinca herbacea Waldst. & Kit.

First published in Descriptiones et Icones Plantarum Hungariae 1: 8 (1799)
(Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, Pl. XIV nº 3; 1983)

≡ Vinca libanotica Zucc. (Abhandlungen der Mathematisch-Physikalischen Classe der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 3: 247, t. 8; 1840)

• Life-form & habit: Perennial herb with all stems prostrate or trailing along the ground, not rooting at the nodes, 30–40 cm long.

• Leaves: Very shortly petiolate; lower leaves ovate, upper ones elliptic-lanceolate or ovate-oblong, attenuate at both ends; all with very short, rough ciliation along the margins.

• Inflorescence & flowers: Peduncles axillary, equalling or exceeding the leaves; calyx lobes linear-lanceolate, acute, shortly ciliate on the edges, about half as long as the corolla tube. Corolla bluish-violet, funnel-shaped, about twice the length of the calyx.

• Fruit: Follicles paired, arched, finely striate and smooth.

• Phenology: Flowers March – April.

• Habitat & elevation: Rocky and dry terrains, foothills to lower mountains.

• Lebanese distribution: Recorded by Mouterde in Marjayyoun, Jilline, Fiq, Tell Hadid, and Soueida, including the Tell Hadid region of southern Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon. 

• Native range: Austria, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia–Slovakia, East Aegean Is., Germany, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Krym, Lebanon, Syria, North Caucasus, NW. Balkan Peninsula, Palestine, Romania, South European Russia, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine (POWO).