Catharanthus roseus(L.) G.Don

Madagascar Periwinkle

WFO wfo-0000819442 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Catharanthus roseus, photographed by Sameer Kulkarni
fig. a Sameer Kulkarni, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-25 / obs. 200398531
Catharanthus roseus, photographed by Ben
fig. b Ben, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201198928
Catharanthus roseus, photographed by N P
fig. c N P, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198418662
Catharanthus roseus, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. d Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195978922
Catharanthus roseus, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. e Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198006300
Catharanthus roseus, photographed by Jean-Paul Boerekamps
fig. f Jean-Paul Boerekamps, CC0 1.0 / obs. 199613559
Catharanthus roseus, photographed by Jade Fortnash
fig. g Jade Fortnash, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194101111
Catharanthus roseus, photographed by Justin Ponder
fig. h Justin Ponder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193731042

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 6,721 observations

Peak flowering in Nov, from 6,721 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 19 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Ammocallis rosea (L.) Small
  • Catharanthus roseus var. albus G.Don
  • Catharanthus roseus var. nanus Markgr.
  • Lachnea rosea (L.) Rchb.
  • Lochnera rosea (L.) Rchb. ex K.Schum.
  • Lochnera rosea (L.) K.Schum.
  • Lochnera rosea f. alba (Sweet) Woodson
  • Lochnera rosea var. alba (G.Don) Hubbard
  • Lochnera rosea var. angusta Steenis
  • Lochnera rosea var. flava Tsiang
  • Lochnera rosea var. ocellata (Sweet) Woodson
  • Pervinca rosea (L.) Moench
  • Pervinca rosea (L.) Gaterau
  • Vinca guilelmi-waldemarii Klotzsch
  • Vinca rosea L.
  • Vinca rosea var. alba Sweet
  • Vinca rosea var. albiflora Bertol.
  • Vinca rosea var. rosea
  • Vinca speciosa Salisb.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.