Distribution

Bigleaf periwinkle is native to Mediterranean Europe [1,4], Asia Minor [1], and northern Africa (review by [10]). Common periwinkle is native across all of continental Europe as far north as the Baltic States [86]. Both bigleaf [51,55,92,107] and common [29,42,50,55,97,100,103,117] periwinkle are frequently planted in North America and escape from cultivation. Periwinkles may also spread with the dumping of yard waste ([17,37], review by [10]). A review of 19th-century floras documented periwinkles in the United States by the late 1700s [112].

In the United States, bigleaf periwinkle has a U-shaped distribution from New York and Massachusetts in the east, south to Georgia, west to California, and north to Washington. Exceptions to this distributional pattern include Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, West Virginia, Florida, Oklahoma, and Nevada. Bigleaf periwinkle does not occur in the majority of the states in the Northern Great Plains or Northern and Central Rockies. Common periwinkle occurs in every state in the eastern United States from Minnesota south to Louisiana. It is discontinuously distributed in the western United States, occurring in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and Montana. The Plants Database provides a map of bigleaf and common periwinkle distributions in North America.