VICIA PEREGRINA

Family and Genus:- See- LEGUMINOSAE/Sect. VICIA

Common Name:- Slender-leaved vetch

Homotypic Synonyms:- Vicia megalosperma

Meaning:- Vicia (L) Binder, to bind, a name used by the Roman naturalist and

philosopher Pliny for vetch.

Peregrina (L) Strange, foreign, exotic.

General description:- Sparsely hairy annual.

Stems:-

1) 20-40 cm, sparingly branched from the base, sparsely and shortly appressed-

pubescent throughout.

Leaves:-

1) Leaflets, 3-7 pairs, 8-30 x 0·5-2(-3) mm, linear, truncate and apiculate, tendril

simple or branched.

2) Stipules, small, semi-hastate, dark.

Flowers:-

1) Solitary or 2 together, in the upper leaf axils.

2) Pedicels, 4-10 mm.

3) Calyx, campanulate, slightly gibbous:

a) teeth, unequal, the longest somewhat exceeding the tube.

4) Corolla 12-20 mm, usually dark bluish-purple;

a) standard limb, twice as long as the claw.

Fruit:-

1) Legume, 20-35 x 5-10 mm, brown, oblong-elliptical, strongly compressed,

tapering to a short beak, appressed-puberulent.

2) Seeds, 4-6; hilum 1/12-1/10 of the circumference, subglobose, smooth.

Key features:-

1) Standard, and wings purple.

2) Leaflets, not more than 3 mm wide, linear, usually with 3 acute points at the

apex.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Dry open shrubby vegetation, field margins, olive groves, open woodland

and some-what ruderalised habitats. 0-1100 m. generally over limestone.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece, but less common in the west. - Widespread in

the Mediterranean region and Atlantic Islands, through Anatolia to c Asia. Sparsely

scattered across Crete not to common.

Flowering time:- Mar-June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton