Vicia cracca

Bird Vetch

The bird vetch (Vicia cracca ) is a species of the genus vetches (Vicia ) in the legume family ( Fabaceae ).

Features

The bird vetch is a perennial herbaceous plant that up to 120 cm reaches a height of 30 cm. The pinnate leaves, the leaflets last are transformed into a branched tendril. Apart from the vines, the leaves consist of eight to twelve pairs of narrow, oblong leaflets that are 2-6 mm wide and about 1 cm long.

The flowering period extends from June to August. Bird vetch have racemose inflorescences, in which together are 10 to 40 flowers tightly. Often, the inflorescences are einseitswendig. The Blütenstandsschäfte have approximately the length of the bracts. The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and 8 to 12 mm long and fünfzählig double perianth. The five petals are blue violet to purple.

The legumes are up to 25 mm long. The seeds are rich in protein, globose, up to 3 mm thick and 9-16 mg hard.

Ecology

The bird vetch is a Hemikryptophyt, a climber and a half rosette plant. The leaflets possess terminal winding tendrils that have arisen from converted Frond. This result, like all tendrils of circling searching movements and respond to tactile stimuli; it is therefore a thigmonasty. The bird vetch is a deep-rooting and forms like all Vicia species root nodules with symbiotic nitrogen-fixing root nodule bacteria from.

The flowers are vormännliche " butterfly flowers with brush device ". The anthers empty the pollen often within the bud above the hairy style. During a visit by insects, the boat works down, and brush the stylus presses on the abdomen of the insect. After several repetitions of this process, the pen brush is free of pollen, and scuffed the delicate scar surface. Thus it is now sticky and receptive capable at other visitors, such as bees and butterflies. Bumblebees commit often nectar robbery by lateral biting the flower. Then honey bees can be found in the nectar of these holes. The flowering period extends from June to August.

Since legumes are black they can store heat. It is drying spreader with a spreading width of 1-2 meters. As a "roll seeds " they roll usually still a little further. In addition, processing of lateral spread by various birds, random spread and spread by people, for example, seeds of sainfoin ( Onobrychis viciifolia ). Fruit ripening is from August to October. The storage cotyledons ( cotyledons ) remain in germination in the soil, it is therefore a hypogeous germination before.

Vegetative propagation is done by underground runners.

Occurrence

The distribution of bird vetch originally extended to the temperate zone of Eurasia. Meanwhile, she also happens in North America. The locations they preferred meadows, pastures, seams, fields and waste places with fresh to moderately dry loam and clay soils. It rises from the plains to the mountains. In the Alps locations at altitudes of up to 1180 meters are occupied.

Swell

• Henning Haeupler, Thomas Muer: Image Atlas of ferns and flowering plants in Germany. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-8001-3364-4.
• Werner Roth painter ( Lim. ), Rudolf Schubert, Klaus Werner, Hermann Meusel (ed.): Exkursionsflora the territories of the GDR and the FRG. Volume 2: vascular plants. 14th edition. Volk und Wissen, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-06-012539-2.
• Otto Schmeil, Jost hinge plates ( Lim. ), Werner Rauh, Karlheinz Senghas: Flora of Germany and its neighboring areas. 84th edition. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1968.
• Ruprecht Duell, Herfried Kutzelnigg: Pocket Dictionary of Plants in Germany and neighboring countries. The most common central European species in the portrait. 7, revised and expanded edition. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-494-01424-1.