''Vicia ervilia'', commonly known as ervil or bitter vetch, is an ancient grain legume crop of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

region. Besides the English names, other common names include: (Persian), (Arabic), (Spanish), (Greek), and (Turkish).L.L. Bellido, "Grain legumes for animal feed"
in ''Neglected crops: 1492 from a different perspective'', J.E. Bermejo and J. Leon, editors; Plant Production and Protection Series, No. 26 (Rome: FAO), pp. 273-288 The nutritional value of the grain for

ruminant Ruminants (suborder Ruminantia) are ungulate, hoofed herbivorous grazing or browsing mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by Enteric fermentation, fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally ...

cattle has guaranteed the species' continued cultivation in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. The crop is easy to cultivate and harvest and can be grown on very shallow,

alkaline In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a base (chemistry), basic, ionic compound, ionic salt (chemistry), salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as ...

soils. The grain when split resembles red

lentil The lentil (''Lens culinaris'' or ''Lens esculenta'') is an edible legume. It is an annual plant known for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about tall, and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each. As a food crop, the largest pro ...

s. For human consumption the bitterness of the seeds needs to be removed through leaching by several changes of boiling water. Owing to this bitterness, it is unlikely that someone would accidentally confuse bitter vetch with red lentils.Enneking & Francis (1997
"Development of ''Vicia ervilia'' as a grain crop for Southern Australia"
/ref> According to Zohary and Hopf, only humans of the poorest economic classes consume this crop, or in times of

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

;

Daniel Zohary Daniel (Dani) Zohary (24 April 1926 - 16 December 2016) was an Israeli plant geneticist, agronomist and an influential professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hebrew University. He was the coauthor of a major synthesis, the ''Domestication ...

Maria Hopf Maria Hopf (13 September 1913 – 24 August 2008) was a pioneering archaeobotanist, based at the RGZM, Mainz. Career Hopf studied botany from 1941–44, receiving her doctorate in 1947 on the subject of soil microbes. She then worked in phyto ...

and

Ehud Weiss Ehud ben‑Gera ( he, אֵהוּד בֶּן־גֵּרָא, Tiberian ''ʾĒhūḏ ben‑Gērāʾ'') is described in the biblical Book of Judges chapter 3 as a judge who was sent by God to deliver the Israelites from Moabite domination. He is d ...

, ''Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of Domesticated Plants in Southwest Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin'', 4th edition (Oxford: University Press, 2012), p. 116.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

states that bitter vetch (''ervum'') has medicinal value like

vetch ''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 ...

(''vicia''), citing the letters of

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pri ...

where the

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

wrote that he regained his health from a diet of bitter vetch ( N.H. 18.38). The grain is an excellent sheep and cattle feed concentrate. It has been held in high esteem by farmers in the Old World since the beginning of agriculture to improve the nutritional value of bulk feeds. The wild strains of bitter vetch are limited to an area that includes

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

and northern

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

, with an extension south along the

Anti-Lebanon Mountains The Anti-Lebanon Mountains ( ar, جبال لبنان الشرقية, Jibāl Lubnān ash-Sharqiyyah, Eastern Mountains of Lebanon; Lebanese Arabic: , , "Eastern Mountains") are a southwest–northeast-trending mountain range that forms most of th ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

and

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

. Traces of the earliest domesticated instances were recovered from several archeological sites in

, with an uncorrected

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

of the 7th and 6th millennia BC.

References

ervilia Founder crops {{fabeae-stub