Vicia hirsuta - Tiny Vetch

Tiny Vetch is an annual herb producing a slender, often four-sided, hairless to lightly hairy, climbing stem up to 70-90 cm tall, and known to well exceed 1 m at times. The leaves are tipped with tendrils that support the plant as it climbs. The leaves are made up of up to 10 pairs of elongated leaflets, each up to 2 cm in length with notched, flat, sharply pointed, or toothed tips. Flowers are borne in a raceme of up to 8 flowers borne near the tip and often on one side only. Each flower is whitish or pale blue, just a few mm in length, and short-lived. The fruit is a pod up to 1 x 0.5 cm, and hairy, often densely so. It is pale green to nearly black in color and contains usually two seeds. Tiny Vetch is found in Europe, Africa and Asia. It is found in the Himalayas, at altitudes of 200-2700 m.