Catharanthus roseus
Catharanthus
Madagascar periwinkle, rosy periwinkle
periwinkle
erect, ascending, or decumbent, unarmed, glabrous or eglandular-pubescent.
petiole (1–)3–11 mm, sparsely pubescent or glabrous;
blade elliptic to obovate, oblong, or rarely lanceolate, (1–)2.5–9 × (0.6–)0.8–4 cm, membranous, base cuneate to attenuate, apex rounded to acute or obtuse, mucronulate, surfaces sparsely pubescent or glabrous.
deciduous, opposite or occasionally subopposite, petiolate;
stipular colleters interpetiolar and intrapetiolar;
laminar colleters absent.
axillary, solitary flowers or pairs of flowers, short-pedunculate or sessile.
1–4 mm, sparsely pubescent or glabrous, occasionally absent.
0–1 mm, sparsely pubescent or glabrous.
calyx lobes narrowly lanceolate, 2–6 mm, sparsely pubescent or glabrous;
corolla eglandular-pubescent abaxially and adaxially, tube (15–)20–30 × 1–1.5 mm, throat 4–5 × 2–3 mm, lobes spreading, broadly obovate, often mucronulate, (5–)10–28 × 10–25 mm.
calycine colleters absent;
corolla white, pink, red, magenta, or red-violet, salverform, aestivation sinistrorse;
corolline corona absent;
androecium and gynoecium not united into a gynostegium;
stamens inserted at top [middle] of corolla tube;
anthers connivent, not adherent to stigma, connectives not appendiculate or enlarged, locules 4;
pollen free, not massed into pollinia, translators absent;
nectaries 2, elongate and often exceeding ovary.
follicles, solitary or paired, erect, green, slender and weakly moniliform, terete or compressed, surface striate, pubescent.
1–3 × 0.5–1.5 mm.
ovoid [oblong], flattened, not winged, not beaked, not comose, not arillate.
(12–)20–50 × 1.5–2 mm.
= 8.
= 16.
Catharanthus roseus
Catharanthus
Catharanthus roseus is of great pharmaceutical interest for its ability to synthesize a large number (ca. 130) of monoterpenoid indole alkaloids, the best known of which are vinblastine and vincristine (Q. Pan et al. 2016). When purified, both compounds have been shown to be useful for treating certain cancers, especially Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, and acute leukemia (R. Van der Heijden et al. 2004), and act by disrupting microtubules, causing dissolution of the mitotic spindle and metaphase arrest in dividing cells.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Species 8 (1 in the flora).
At various times the generic names Vinca, Lochnera Reichenbach, and Catharanthus have been used for the species treated here, but W. T. Stearn (1966) argued convincingly that the latter name is the legitimate one for the genus. While Catharanthus and Vinca have been shown to be somewhat closely related (A. O. Simões et al. 2016), they have disjunct native geographic ranges (India, Madagascar, and Sri Lanka for Catharanthus, Europe and western Asia for Vinca) and are easily distinguished by the characteristics given in the generic key.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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