Tufted Vetch
Latin name: Vicia cracca
Family: Fabaceae
Other common names; cow vetch, bird vetch
Flowering time: July to September
Height: to 130cm
Growing conditions: relatively fertile dry to moist soils
Nectar source for: variety of bees
Food source for: grey text
Description
Tufted Vetch is a long-lived perennial plant which scrambles and grows around other vegetation. It has a number of stems coming off the main stem either with a dozen pairs of leaves or a very beautiful row of flowers. It grows in the meadow but also climbs up the hawthorn on the track around the oxbow. The seed pods of Tufted vetch look like very small peapods and turn black when they are ripe.
How to identify: A scrambling plant, Tufted vetch has long, grey-green leaves that grow in a symmetrical row from long, trailing stems; curled tendrils used for climbing and grasping often spiral from the ends. Its flowers are pinky-purple tube shapes that turn up into a hood at the end and grow in dense clusters along one side of the flower spike.
How to propagate: grey text
Family: Fabaceae
Other common names; cow vetch, bird vetch
Flowering time: July to September
Height: to 130cm
Growing conditions: relatively fertile dry to moist soils
Nectar source for: variety of bees
Food source for: grey text
Description
Tufted Vetch is a long-lived perennial plant which scrambles and grows around other vegetation. It has a number of stems coming off the main stem either with a dozen pairs of leaves or a very beautiful row of flowers. It grows in the meadow but also climbs up the hawthorn on the track around the oxbow. The seed pods of Tufted vetch look like very small peapods and turn black when they are ripe.
How to identify: A scrambling plant, Tufted vetch has long, grey-green leaves that grow in a symmetrical row from long, trailing stems; curled tendrils used for climbing and grasping often spiral from the ends. Its flowers are pinky-purple tube shapes that turn up into a hood at the end and grow in dense clusters along one side of the flower spike.
How to propagate: grey text