Benefits of the Periwinkle

Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654)
The Complete Herbal Guide, (1653)

In my post on the Cloisters, and specifically describing the periwinkles in the one of the gardens, I wrote in 2012:

The information plaque by the periwinkle bed in the Cloisters describes the flower as a medieval cancer treatment:

Annual periwinkles have been used for centuries for folk medicine, especially for treating diabetes, and are the source of several cancer drugs.

Here is more current information on the medicinal values of the plant:

Periwinkle is an herb. The parts that grow above the ground are used to make medicine. Don’t confuse periwinkle with Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus).

Despite serious safety concerns, periwinkle is used for “brain health” (increasing blood circulation in the brain, supporting brain metabolism, increasing mental productivity, preventing memory and concentration problems and feebleness, improving memory and thinking ability, and preventing early aging of brain cells).

Periwinkle is also used for treating diarrhea, throat ailments, tonsillitis, chest pain, high blood pressure, sore throat, intestinal pain and swelling (inflammation), toothache, and water retention (edema). It is also used for promoting wound healing, improving the way the immune system defends the body, and for “blood-purification.”

A chemical in periwinkle called vincamine can be converted in the laboratory to the compound vinpocetine, which is marketed as a dietary supplement.

How does it work?

Periwinkle can lower blood pressure. It can also help reduce swelling (inflammation) and have a drying (astringent) effect on the tissues.

It doesn't look like the periwinkle has reliable, or even safe, medicinal benefits. But it is a lovely flower, and has been used for other, more symbolic reasons.

The periwinkle is found in the Mary Garden:

In medieval times, a garden could have a symbolic and spiritual dimension. The hortus conclusus or 'enclosed garden' was a sacred area which might represent the Christian soul, enclosed in the body, or the Church, formed of the body of the faithful. It was also, in the late Middle Ages, an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, identified with the bride in the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. In the 15th century, depictions of the Virgin in a Paradise Garden were frequent, in particular in Flemish and German painting. In these images, the flowers all have a symbolic meaning, representing Mary's virtues.

By growing these flowers in a bed outside our own church dedicated to St Mary, we have created an area of colour and interest, and also linked ourselves with the medieval inhabitants of Shoreham, who would have understood very well the spiritual significance of these lovely plants.

The special blue color of the flower, as well as its star shape earned its place as:

'The Virgin's Flower', probably because of its blue, star-like flowers. Mary was often referred to as Stella Maris, 'Star of the Sea'

In Flower lore: the teachings of flowers, historical, legendary, poetical & symbolical here is a Miss Carruthers', a Victorian lady's, account of the periwinkle. Excerpts are quoted from this online source (which has posted the book in its entirety)

Rousseau mentions an example of the tenacity with which early impressions are retained. Walking one day with Madame Warens, she exclaimed, ' O ! there is the periwinkle still in bloom!' Till then I had never seen the periwinkle, and being too short-sighted to distinguish plants without stooping, merely glanced at the blue flowers growing under the hedge; but so deeply was every circumstance connected with that period impressed upon my memory that, thirty years later, when botanising with a friend, I came suddenly upon the periwinkle, and although I had never met with it during the interval, I at once joyfully recognised it. [Pp. 199-200]

She continues:

In Italy the periwinkle, called by the peasants Fiof di morta, is strewed over the graves of children; in the south of France, chaplets of white roses and orange blossom are put in their coffins; in Switzerland, a funeral wreath for a young girl is made of hawthorn, myrtle, orange blossom. Though rosemary was worn at weddings, and dipped in the wine at feasts, it was more especially the flower of funerals. [P. 222]

And by Nicholas Culpepper printed in the 17th century:

Those with pale blue, and those with the white flowers, grow in woods, in orchards, by the hedge sides; but those with the purple flowers in gardens only...

Venus owns this herb, and saith, that herbs eaten by man and wife together, cause love between them. The Periwinkle is a great binder, stayeth bleeding both at mouth and nose, if some of the leaves be chewed. The French use it to stay women's courses. Dioscorides, Galen and Aegineta, commend it against the lasks and fluxes of the belly, to be drank in wine.
Source: The English physician enlarged with three hundred and sixty nine medicines, made of English herbs, that were not in any impression until this.
By Nich. Culpepper, Gent. Student in Physics and Astrology, London
Printed for: E. Ballard, L. Hawes ,and Co. W. Johnston, R. Baldwin, S. Crowder, B. Law, C. and R. Ware, M. Richardson, W. Strahan, and W. Nicolt, 1770. [Pp. 252-253]