Lathyrus vernus

Spring pea ( Lathyrus vernus )

The Spring pea ( Lathyrus vernus ) is a typical plant of the Central European deciduous forests and belongs to the subfamily of the Fabaceae ( Faboideae ).

Features

The Spring pea is a perennial, herbaceous plant that forms a short branched rhizome with roots to a depth of one meter. It reaches heights of growth from 20 to 40 (rarely 60) cm. The stems are erect to ascending, at their base are vestigial stipules. The stems are not branched, furrowed and rather bare.

The leaves have two or three (rarely one to four ) Fiederpaare and no tendrils. During drying, the leaves are not black. The petiole is winged. The rachis ends in a grannenartige tip. The leaflets are ovate, three to seven ( rarely up to ten) cm long, acuminate 1-3 cm wide and long. The Fiedernerven are connected arching and reticular. The leaves are hairy on the edge and at the top often short, at the bottom shiny. The stomata sit on the underside of leaves, on the upper leaf surface are elliptical water column for excretion of liquid water. The stipules are 10 to 25 mm long and 2-8 mm wide, half- pike -shaped with small ears.

The inflorescences are clusters of three to eight (rarely ten) flowers, shorter or longer than its bract. The upper inflorescences project beyond the Endspross. The flowers are nodding to protrude and have a 1-3 mm long pedicel. Bracts absent or stunted. The cup is designed bags at the top, rather bald and brown crowded to purple. The calyx teeth are unequal in length: the upper triangular, together eigend and significantly shorter than the lower. The lower ones are lanceolate and a quarter to half as long as the calyx tube. The crown is 13 to 20 mm long, of red-violet color and is wilting blue to blue-green. The flag is much longer than wings and keel. The stylus is not widened upwards, hairy and not rotated. Flowering period is April to May.

The legumes are available from upright, are 4-6 cm long and 5-8 mm wide. They have a linealische, flat shape, the pen rest is curved downward. The fruit is network annoying, mostly bald, brown in color and contains 8 to 14 seeds. These are 3 to 4 mm long, globose to lenticular, have a smooth surface and yellow -colored brown or marbled slightly darker. The umbilicus is narrow and takes a quarter to a third of the circumference of a seed.

The species has the chromosome number 2n = 14

Flowers and diaspore ecology

The flowers are nectar- leading butterfly flowers with a brush mechanism. Wings and keel are quite firmly joined together, the flowers can be pollinated only by relatively strong insects. These include especially some bumblebee species ( Bombus pascuorum ( agrorum ), Bombus confusus, Bombus hortorum, Bombus lapidarius, Bombus mastrucatus ), but also some wild bee species ( Osmia rufa, Anthophora acervorum, Leptidia sinapis, Eucera longicornis, Andrena species) and the Western Honey Bee (Apis mellifera). Bombus terrestris is a nectar robbers and bites the flowers on the side.

The fruits are fruit extractor: By drying up the sleeve to tear and spread these seeds, which thus act as diaspore.

Dissemination and locations

The Spring Pea is a Eurasian Art The area extends from eastern France with interruptions to the Pacific coast of Siberia. In Belgium and the Netherlands, it is a neophyte in the north- east Germany it is only absent-minded, in the northwest it is missing to Kiel, otherwise it is widespread. In Saarland, she is lost.

The Spring pea grows mainly in deciduous forests, rare in coniferous mixed forests. It occurs especially on fresh, nutrient-rich, rather loose calcareous clay and loamy soils. She is a Mullboden and Kalkzeiger. It rises to the montane, rarely subalpine altitudinal zone.

She is a Ordnungscharakterart of beech forests ( Fagetalia sylvaticae ).

Documents

• Siegmund Seybold (ed.): Schmeil Fitschen - interactive ( CD -Rom ), Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2001/2002, ISBN 3-494-01327-6