LATHYRUS SETIFOLIUS

Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE

Common Name:- Brown vetch, Red pea

Homotypic Synonyms:- Orobus setifolius.

Meaning:- Lathyrus (Gr) The ancient name for chickling pea.

Setifolius (L) With bristly-surfaced leaves.

General description:- Subglabrous, slender, scrambling annual.

Stem:-

1) 10-60 cm, narrowly winged.

Leaves:-

1) Short-petiolate, 1-paired, with simple or usually branched tendril.

2) Leaflets, 20-90 x 0·5-3(-4) mm, linear, grass-like.

3) Stipules, 2-15 x 0·2-2 mm, linear, semi-sagittate.

Flowers:-

1) Solitary on filiform peduncles, 10-40 mm, articulated near the apex.

2) Calyx teeth, triangular-acuminate, ± equalling the tube.

3) Corolla, 8-12 mm, brick-red to crimson.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, distinctly stipitate, oblong, 18-30 x 7-10 mm, reticulate-veined,

puberulent on the straight dorsal suture.

2) Seeds, 2-4, c. 5 mm, spherical, finely tuberculate, dark brown. hilum 1/9-1/8 of

the circumference.

Key features:-

1) Glabrous.

2) Corolla, orange-red.

3) Peduncles, 5-70 mm. Not aristate.

4) Legume, 7-11 mm wide, pubescent when immature; glabrescent when mature,

but persistently pubescent on the suture.

5) Seeds, 2-3, coarsely reticulate-rugose. With the hilum more than 1/20 of the

circumference.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Open dry shrubby vegetation, scrubland vegetation and open woodland on

rocky limestone slopes, terraced olive groves. 0-700(-1300) m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece. - Widespread in the Mediterranean region ans

SW Asia. Fairly widespread and common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Mar to early June.

Photos by:- Johanna Heath