''Vicia hirsuta'' or ''Ervilia hirsuta''
[ C. A. Stace, ''New Flora of the British Isles'', 4th edition 2019, p 171: ''Ervilia hirsuta''. .] (hairy tare,
flowering plant
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...
in the pea and bean family .
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 stem, leaf or petiole with a threadlike shape used by climbing plants for support and attachment, as well as cellular invasion by parasitic plants such as ''Cuscuta''. There are many plants that have tendr ...
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
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
is a raceme
A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, 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 produced as the s ...
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
A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock f ...
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
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and Western Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
. 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 there ...
. For example, hairy vetch is commonly used in cover crop
In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife i ...
s and green manure
In agriculture, a green manure is a crop specifically produced to be incorporated into the soil while still green. Typically, the green manure's biomass is incorporated with a plow or disk, as is often done with (brown) manure. The primary goal ...
s on farms in North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
. 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 likely native to North Africa, Western Asia and Europe, but is now naturalized in temperate and ...
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 or winter wheat
Winter wheat (usually ''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. Classification ...
). The species ''Vicia villosa
''Vicia villosa'', known as the hairy vetch, fodder vetch or winter vetch, is a plant native to some of Europe and western Asia. It is a legume, grown as a forage crop, fodder crop, cover crop, and green manure. Although non-native, it occurs in ...
'' is also called hairy vetch.
References
External links
Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfileWashington Burke MuseumAgroAtlas: Economic PlantsPhoto gallery
hirsuta
Flora of Western Asia
Flora of Europe
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