TUFTED VETCH
Scientific Name: Vicia cracca L.
Other Names: vesce jargeau, Bird vetch, jargeau, vesce multiflore, petits-oiseaux
Family: Legume or Bean Family (Leguminosae)
General Description: Perennial, reproducing by seed and by spreading underground root-stocks.
Habitat: Tufted vetch occurs throughout Ontario in cultivated fields, pastures, waste places, roadsides and gardens.
Seedlings
- Mostly vegetative shoots from underground root-stocks, some seedlings,
- Both have composite leaves,
- Both have stems.
Stems
- 40 cm- 2 m (16-80 in.) long
- Weak
- Wiry
- Trailing on the ground or climbing on nearby objects
Leaves
- Alternate (1 per node)
- Pinnately compound with 8 to 12 pairs of bristle-tipped leaflets and branching tendrils at the end (the plant climbing by means of these tendrils)
Flowers
- Bluish-purple
- Pea-like
- About 12 mm (1/2 in.) long
- Often 30 or more crowed together on one side of a long bare stalk
- Seedpods:
- Pea-like
- 10-25 mm (2/5-1 in.) long
- 4-6 mm (1/6-1/4 in.) wide
- Partly flattened
- Light brown
- Containing 2 to 8 seeds
- Seeds:
- Oval
- Reddish-brown
- 2.5-3 mm (1/10-1/8 in.) across
- Marked with a prominent, long, whitish or reddish-brown scar
- Flowers from early June to late autumn
Often Confused With
Clover (It is distinguished by its spreading underground rootstalks, compound leaves with 8 to 12 pairs of leaflets and branching tendrils, many flowers clustered on one side of a long stalk, and its flattened, brownish seedpods containing up to 8 rounded seeds, each with a scar extending ¼ to 1/3 of the way around it.)