''Vicia hirsuta'' (syn. ''Ervilia hirsuta'')

C. A. Stace Clive Anthony Stace (born 1938) is a British botanist and botanical author. He studied at King's College London, graduated from University of London in 1959 and then studied at the Natural History Museum, London. He was awarded a PhD in 1963. H ...

, ''New Flora of the British Isles'', 4th edition 2019, p 171: ''Ervilia hirsuta''. . (hairy tare, hairy vetch, tiny vetch) is a species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

in the pea and bean family

Fabaceae Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomen ...

Description

It is an annual herb producing a slender, often four-sided, hairless to lightly hairy, climbing stem up to 70 to 90 centimeters tall, and known to well exceed one meter at times. The leaves are tipped with

tendril In botany, a tendril is a specialized Plant stem, stem, leaf or Petiole (botany), petiole with a thread-like shape used by climbing plants for support and attachment, as well as cellular invasion by parasitic plants such as ''Cuscuta''. There ar ...

s that support the plant as it climbs, and are made up of up to 10 pairs of elongated leaflets Webb, D.A., Parnell, J. and Doogue, D. 1996. ''An Irish Flora''. Dundalgan Press Ltd, Dundalk. each up to 2 centimeters in length with notched, flat, sharply pointed, or toothed tips. The

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

is a

raceme A raceme () or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate growth, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are ...

of up to 8 flowers borne near the tip and often on one side only. Each flower is whitish or pale blue, just a few millimeters in length, and short-lived. The fruit is a

legume Legumes are plants in the pea family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seeds of such plants. When used as a dry grain for human consumption, the seeds are also called pulses. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consum ...

pod up to a centimeter long by half a centimeter wide and hairy, often densely so. It is pale green to nearly black in color and contains usually two seeds.

Distribution

It is native to Europe and Western Asia. It can be found on other continents as an

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

. For example, hairy vetch is commonly used in

cover crop In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to ground cover, cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, Pest (organism), pests, diseases ...

s and

green manure In agriculture, a green manure is a crop specifically cultivated to be incorporated into the soil while still green. Typically, the green manure's Biomass (ecology), biomass is incorporated with a plow or disk, as is often done with (brown) man ...

s on farms in North America. Typically,

common vetch ''Vicia sativa'', known as the common vetch, garden vetch, tare or simply vetch, is a nitrogen-fixing leguminous plant in the family Fabaceae. It is now naturalised throughout the world occurring on every continent, except Antarctica and the Arc ...

or hairy vetch provides the leguminous component of the crop, usually comingled with a grassy component as a

nurse crop Nurse crops are a subtype of nurse plants, facilitating the growth of other species of plants. The term is used primarily in agriculture, but also in forestry. Cover crops are a type of nurse crop. Agriculture In agriculture, a nurse crop is ...

and an addition of more cellulose to the resultant organic matter (for example,

rye Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is grown principally in an area from Eastern and Northern Europe into Russia. It is much more tolerant of cold weather and poor soil than o ...

winter wheat Winter wheat (usually ''Common wheat, Triticum aestivum'') are strains of wheat that are planted in the autumn to germinate and develop into young plants that remain in the vegetative phase during the winter and resume growth in early spring. C ...

). The species ''

Vicia villosa ''Vicia'' is a genus of over 240 species of flowering plants that are part of the legume family (Fabaceae), and which are commonly known as vetches. Member species are native to Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa. Some other g ...

'' is also called hairy vetch.

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfileWashington Burke MuseumAgroAtlas: Economic PlantsPhoto galleryWeeds of Melbourne
{{Taxonbar, from=Q159732 hirsuta Flora of Western Asia Flora of Europe