FoI
Common Vetch
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Common Vetch
A Native Photo: Tabish
Common name: Common Vetch, Garden vetch • Hindi: आकरा Akra, Akta, आँकरा Ankra, मटरी Matari
Botanical name: Vicia sativa subsp. sativa    Family: Fabaceae (Pea family)
Synonyms: Vicia obcordata, Vicia communis, Vicia bacla, Vicia nemoralis

Common Vetch is an annual herb, velvet-hairy to nearly hairless, prostrate, erect or climbing. Leaves are pinnately compound, leaf-stalk less than 1 cm long; leaflets 4-18, 1-4 cm long, 2-15 mm broad, oblong-cuneate to obcordate, apex truncate or emarginate. Flowers are pale pink, crimson, purplish violet, rarely white, 1.8-3.0 cm. Sepal teeth are equal or longer than the sepal tube, which is a distinguishing feature. The closely related Black-Pod Vetch has sepal teeth much smaller than the sepal tube. Pods are 2.3-6.5 cm long, 4-8.5 mm broad, narrowly oblong, velvet-hairy becoming hairless when mature, 6-12-seeded. Common Vetch is found in Pakistan; Kashmir; India; Orient, Europe; Russia; Far East, up to 3000 m. Flowering: July-August.

Identification credit: Tabish Photographed in Nubra Valley, Ladakh.

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