The PERIWINKLE (_vinca_ or _pervinca_) has had its due share of poetical
distinction. In France the common people call it the Witch's violet. It
seems to have suggested to Wordsworth an idea of the consciousness of
flowers.
Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The Periwinkle trailed its wreaths,
_And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes._
Mr. J.L. Merritt, has some complimentary lines on this flower.
The Periwinkle with its fan-like leaves
All nicely levelled, is a lovely flower
Whose dark wreath, myrtle like, young Flora weaves;
There's none more rare
Nor aught more meet to deck a fairy's bower
Or grace her hair.
The little blue Periwinkle is rendered especially interesting to the
admirers of the genius of Rousseau by an anecdote that records his
emotion on meeting it in one of his botanical excursions. He had seen it
thirty years before in company with Madame de Warens. On meeting its
sweet face again, after so long and eventful an interim, he fell upon
his knees, crying out--_Ah! voila de la pervanche!_ "It struck him,"
says Hazlitt, "as the same little identical flower that he remembered so
well; and thirty years of sorrow and bitter regret were effaced from his
memory."
The Periwinkle was once supposed to be a cure for many diseases. Lord
Bacon says that in his time people afflicted with cramp wore bands of
green periwinkle tied about their limbs. It had also its supposed moral
influences. According to Culpepper the leaves of the flower if eaten by
man and wife together would revive between them a lost affection.