Vicia ludoviciana Nutt.   var. ludoviciana .

 

=Vicia exigua

 

Fabaceae (Pea Family)        

 

Native

 

Slender Vetch    

                                      April Photo

 

Plant Characteristics:  Slender-stemmed annual, 3-6 dm. high, climbing, +/- strigose-villous; stipules entire, semisagittate; lfts. 2-6 pairs, linear, 1-2.5 cm., long, rounded to obtuse or emarginate, +/- strigose, especially beneath; tendrils well developed; peduncles filiform, shorter than the lvs., 1-2 fld.; calyx 5-cleft, ca. 2 mm. long, the teeth triangular-subulate; corolla white to purplish, ca. 5 mm. long; stamens diadelphous (9 + 1); pods glabrous, 2-3 cm. long; 2-2.5 mm. wide.

 

Habitat:  Grassy, brushy or wooded slopes below 2000 ft., largely Coastal Sage Scrub, Chaparral, S. Oak Wd., Channel Ids.; cismontane, L. Calif. n.; to Ore. April-June.

 

Name:  Latin, vicia, the classical name.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 476).  Latin, exiguus, short, small.  (Jaeger 99).  Exigua may refer to the short calyx.  (my comment).  Exigua may also refer to the small flowers, or the small size of the plants.  Some vetches are large plants and have larger flowers.  (John Johnson).  Latin, ludo, to play, a player, to imitate (Simpson 352) and Latin, vicia, vetch.  (Jaeger 281).  Ludoviciana, to imitate a vetch. 

 

General:  Rare in the study area, having been found only at the base of the Castaway's Bluffs, roughly below where the old restaurant once stood.  I find no information in my references that any of the species of Vicia were used by any of the early people of California.  (my comments).        About 30 species of the Northern Hemisphere and temperate South America. (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 476).        California plants of this variable species are +/- identical to a race in s. Texas and closely related to V. hassei.  (Hickman, Ed. 656).

 

Text Ref:  Abrams, Vol. II 616; Hickman, Ed. 656; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 477; Roberts 25.

Photo Ref:  Dec-April 92-93 # 22,24; April 93 # 2.

Identity: by R. De Ruff,  confirmed by John Johnson.  

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 446

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 1/22/03.

 

                                           April Photo