Lathyrus aphaca
Vine - pea ( Lathyrus aphaca )
The tendrils flat pea ( Lathyrus aphaca ) is a Fabaceae ( Faboideae ) in the genus of grass pea ( Lathyrus ). It flowers mainly in the months of May to July.
Description
The shoots of this annual herbaceous plant are completely bare and mostly gray-green in color. The stem is ascending or climbing, 10 to 40 cm long, simple or branchy, thin and square but not winged.
Development
In this strange plant, which consists almost exclusively of stipules and tendrils, simple first primary leaves appear at germination after remaining in the soil seed leaves first unsegmented, then dreispitziger, green shed in the form. This is followed by leaves with small unbalanced stipules and leaflets 1 pair, then those with stunted leaves and finally those with completely on the vine reduced leaf surface. These have very enlarged, almost symmetrical become stipules.
The lower leaves are often limited to the most basic more or less associated side leaves, the middle and upper mostly on the large stipules and a single or double entry about 3 to 6 inches long tendril. The side leaves are opposite, ovate - pike -shaped, more or less 1 to 3 cm long and about 0.6 to 0.75 times as wide. They are blunt to pointed, spreading have 2 ears and have numerous, thin, mostly parallel nerves.
Flowers and Fruit
The inflorescences are 1 ( rarely 2) - flowered and about twice as long as the stipules. The flowers are about 10 mm long ( 6-12 mm), sitting on short stalks in the axils of reduced to a tiny scale carrier sheet and are projecting or nodding. The calyx is pale green with a short tube and 2 to 3 times as long, lanceolate, with each barely different teeth. The crown is pale yellow and no more than twice as long as the calyx. The flag is slightly emarginate at the base, often veined purple and slightly longer than the wings and the whitish, front upwardly curved boat.
The legumes are upright spreading, 2-3 cm long and 4-6 mm wide, often slightly curved and rather flat. They are smooth and greenish- brown color. The seeds are flattened - ovoid, 3-4 mm long, smooth, brown to black and mostly gray tires. As a forage crop, the pea tendrils is not suitable, since their seeds are poisonous.
The species has the chromosome number 2n = 14
Dissemination and locations
The species is mainly in the Mediterranean area, distributed in the Balkans and Asia Minor to western India. Adventitious there is Lathyrus aphaca also in Central Europe, France and England. It is a Mediterranean - sub-Mediterranean Florenelement. The tendrils pea is more often found only in southwest Germany. In other areas, usually only temporarily introduced and rare. It is found only in the north- west of Bavaria ( "Franken height" ).
The tendrils pea grows in summer grain - clover and vetch fields, at field margins, in gardens, in waste places. She thrives on calcareous soils as on calcium-poor. Phytosociological it is in Central Europe, a characteristic species of the aperitif - Lathyretum aphacae ( Caucalidion - lappulae Association); but it also occurs in seams of Origanetalia order.