Vicia sativa

Vetch (Vicia sativa ), illustration

The vetch (Vicia sativa), or also called common vetch, a plant that to the subfamily of Fabaceae ( Faboideae ) within the legume family ( Fabaceae ) is heard.

Dusted it is by insects such as bees and butterflies numerous. Your seeds spread by itself from ( Autochorie ).

She is also a widely used forage crop.

They are one of the Archaeophytes Furthermore, since it was already naturalized long ago in the European area. The plant is also regarded as impermanent, as there are many difficult to distinguish subspecies. It is believed that the vetch has developed out of the narrow-leaved vetch.

Occurrence

The vetch is a cultivated plant and can be found wherever man she grows. Otherwise, there are also numerous free-living forms that grow primarily on nutrient- rich soils and are commonly found in waste places and along roadsides, on meadows from May to July. In the whole of Germany it is often only in the foothills of the Alps, it is rare.

Description

The vetch is an annual herbaceous plant that reaches the plant height of 30 to 80 cm. The leaves always form a shared Ranke and are pinnate two to achtpaarig.

Your individually or as a couple standing in the leaf axils and short -stalked flowers are zygomorphic and 16 to 26 mm long. The calyx teeth are the same length as or longer than the calyx tube (as opposed to narrow-leaved vetch ). The petals are purple to violet. The flag is bald.

The mature legumes are colored upright and brown.

System

Distinction between clans

In Central Europe, four clans are found, all belonging to a single species, depending on the view or be divided into several types.

• V. sativa subsp. cordata is a rare neophyte ( evidence especially in the Rhineland ) with dark brown pods, in which the lower leaves broadly heart- shaped, and the upper are narrowly linear.

• V. sativa subsp. sativa is a cultivated plant with more or less light brown sleeves and something broader leaflets, sometimes wild.

• V. sativa subsp. segetalis has black sleeves and can be easily confused with sativa, but can be distinguished by the color of the sleeves.

• V. sativa subsp. nigra has segetalis with the black sleeves together, but differs from this by narrower leaves, a slightly different form of the crown, and a few other location preferences. The two are in Central Europe relatively widespread Archaeophytes.

Different taxonomy in different sources

In Flora Europaea, the individual clans nigra, cordata and sativa with other Mediterranean taxa such as macrocarpa sativa to a single species named V. ( s.lat. ) Are summarized. The subspecies is segetalis by Flora Europaea is a synonym of subspecies nigra.

By Index Synonymique de la Flore de France something which happened quite similar, apart from the fact that there still are several more that do not occur in Central Europe subspecies and the subspecies segetalis is separated from the nigra subsp.

In the Exkursionsflora of Austria and the excursion flora of Germany by Werner Roth painter (critical band, 4th edition ) and Oberdorfer ( 4th edition ), there are three types: V. sativa ( s.str. ), V. cordata and V. angustifolia, with the latter angustifolia subspecies and segetalis.

After FloraWeb there are two types: Vicia sativa ( sativa subspecies and cordata) and V. angustifolia ( angustifolia with the subspecies and segetalis ).

Schmeil - Fitschens Flora of Germany ( 92nd edition) knows just the type V. sativa subspecies nigra, sativa, and segetalis cordata. Here, incidentally, the Narrow-leaved vetch ( V. angustifolia) is treated as a synonym for subspecies nigra.

Thus, individual clans depending on the view sativa either Vicia Vicia angustifolia or be made, the former variant should be preferred.