Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Vicia tetrasperma

Flowers. Photographer Malcolm Storey, England

Flowering stem. Photographer JC Schou, Denmark

Line drawing. USDA NRCS PLANTS Database. Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. Vol. 2: 411.

Common name

Slender Vetch

Family

Fabaceae

Where found

Grassy areas, roadsides, and other disturbed sites, often in damp situations. Coast, ranges, and tablelands north from Moss Vale. Occasional elsewhere.

Notes

Introduced annual herb, to 0.8 m tall, sprawling to erect, or climbing. Stems angular, hairless or hairy. Leaves alternating up the stems, 1-4.5 cm long excluding the tendril at the tip, compound, with mostly 6-12 leaflets. Leaflets each 0.3-2.5 cm long, 0.5-3.5 mm wide, tips pointed or blunt, and mucronate, surfaces hairless or appressed-hairy. Stipules entire, without glands. Flowers 5-8 mm long, pea shaped, with 5 petals, 2 joined together to form the keel, pale blue to pink, the standard petal with purple veins. Flower stalks longer than the flowers. Flowers in clusters of 1-3 flowers. Flowers Winter to Summer.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Vicia~tetrasperma (accessed 8 February, 2021)