Scrambling annual pea-relative with paired oval leaflets and a curly tendril, bearing pink-purple pea flowers singly or in pairs at the leaf joints
Common vetch, Vicia sativa.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Common vetch
Native (BSBI), with a sown fodder subspecies long grown as a crop · flowers May–Sep · grassland, verges, farmland and dunes
Vicia sativa — Fabaceae
A scrambling annual of the pea family that clambers through grass and hedge-bottoms on tendrils, bearing pink-purple pea flowers in ones and twos at the leaf joints. It fixes its own nitrogen in root nodules, which made it a useful fodder and green-manure crop as well as a wild flower. The black seed pods and paired flowers help to separate it from the tufted vetch.
How to spot them
- ▸Scrambling stems with leaves divided into several pairs of oval leaflets ending in a branched tendril
- ▸Pea-like flowers in ones or twos, stalkless in the leaf axils, bright pink to purple with darker wings
- ▸Leaflets vary in shape but the tip often carries a tiny bristle; the lowest leaves can have broad, notched leaflets
- ▸Seed pods are hairless-to-hairy, 3–7 cm long, and ripen black
- ▸Compare tufted vetch, which carries long, one-sided spikes of many blue-violet flowers
How to know it
The specific epithet means 'sown' or 'cultivated', because this legume was grown for fodder and green manure
Vicia sativa — common vetch.
Archaeologists have found evidence suggesting that ancient people ate the seeds of this pea-family plant
Common vetch — a legume like broad beans and garden peas.
A scrambling legume with root nodules that fix nitrogen, useful for fertilising soil and as livestock fodder
Common vetch.
Look for pairs of pink-purple flowers with no visible stalk in the leaf axils, followed by black pods, on a climber of verges and dunes
Common vetch, as against tufted vetch with its long spikes.
BSBI treats the species as native but the subspecies segetalis as a crop plant probably brought by the Romans as fodder
Common vetch, Vicia sativa — an archaeophyte crop form alongside native subspecies.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Fabaceae (legumes), the same family as broad beans, garden peas and pulses
- •Flowers May to September, in groups of one or two, on plants up to 75 cm (Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust)
- •Root nodules fix atmospheric nitrogen, making it a soil-improving crop and fodder plant
- •The BSBI notes three subspecies in Britain and Ireland: nigra (narrow-leaved vetch), segetalis and sativa
- •Subspecies segetalis was probably introduced by the Romans as a fodder legume, and was widely sown in the 20th century as fodder and green manure
- •Archaeological evidence suggests ancient peoples ate the seeds
- •Grows on grassland, farmland, waste ground and roadside verges, and in coastal habitats such as sand dunes
- •Tendrils at the leaf tip cling to other plants; the plant lacks the strong climbing habit of tufted vetch
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Sources
- Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust — Common vetch
- Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland — Vicia sativa L. (Common Vetch)