Fodder Vetch - Vicia villosa

A sprawling plant superficially resembling Tufted Vetch but more hairy and flowers often more purple in colour and sometimes with white or yellowish wings, 10 to 20 mm in long stalked racemes. It has 4 to 12 pairs of leaflets which are linear to narrow-elliptical.

Tufted Vetch (Vicia cracca)

The calyx is very assymmetrical at the base, with a large bulge on the upperside; V cracca has a calyx that is only slightly assymmetrical at the base.

The County Recorder has asked for a specimen of this plant to be retained for verification

Usually derived from grain, bird-seed or wool shoddy imports, and occurring as a casual on waste ground, tips and in arable fields. It sometimes survives for a few years on grassy banks.

Flowers June to November.

Annual.

Widespread in England but very local.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in only 1 of the 617 tetrads.