Subject: Re: HerbLetter 94/12/28 06:30 GMT

From: [email-masked] (Rob King)
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 1994 19:39:00 GMT

C>> [email-masked] (Conrad Richter) writes:
 >>
 >> >   [Navelbine is the trade name for vinorelbine ditartrate, an alkaloid
 >> >   derived from the Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus; syn.
 >> >   Vinca rosea) plant.  This attractive herb is also the source of
 >> >   the drugs vincristine used for childhood leukemia and vinblastine
 >> >   used for Hodgkin's disease and choriocarcinoma.  The herb has also
 >> >   been used for diabetes in Britain and Africa.  -CR]
 >>
C>The herb doubles as a common garden annual flower; most catalogues have it,
 >and of course, ours has it too because of its medicinal properties.  The
 >plant is common throughout tropical Africa and India, though presumably it
 >is either abundant in Madagascar or first described there.  Typical
 >horticultural forms offer rose, purple and white flowers on dwarf plants
 >below a foot in height.  Wild forms grow up to 3 feet in height.

I used to jog thru the Arvida land development <Longboat Key, Bradenton,
FL> back in '78-79.... the Vinca was everywhere.... both the rose and
white varieties.... sometimes an occassional varigated hybrid, but the
rose was probably 90% of the population.  Large plants grew bushy,
perhaps up to .5 meter high in high-saline near-pure sand.  Common name
was "Jamaican Periwinkle" at the time...  I was told that these plants
were spread by seed years earlier from a local doctor who was doing
research on the medicinal properties of the plant....  Sort of a medical
"Johnny Appleseed."

Pretty little flower... has a kinda medicinal-foetid smell, tho.

Rob.

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