Category: Leguminosae

  • Cow Vetch (Vicia cracca)

    A European import cultivated for fodder, Cow Vetch tends to be found wherever livestock is nearby. The vines twine through other less decorative weeds, and the beautiful blue-purple flowers light up the edges of fields. This patch grew in a sunny meadow near Cranberry, where it was blooming in the middle of June.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    VICIA [Tourn.] L. VETCH. TARE

    Calyx 5-cleft or 5-toothed, the 2 upper teeth often shorter, or the lowest longer. Wings of the corolla adhering to the middle of the keel. Stamens more or less diadelphous (9 and 1); the orifice of the tube oblique. Style filiform, hairy all round or only on the back at the apex. Pod flat, 2-valved, 2-several-seeded. Seeds globular. Cotyledons very thick, remaining under ground in germination. Herbs, mostly climbing more or less by the tendril at the end of the pinnate leaves. Stipules half-sagittate. Flowers or peduncles axillary. (The classical Latin name.)

    V. cracca L. Appressed-pubescent; leaflets 8-24, oblong-lanceolate, strongly mucronate; racemes densely many-flowered, 1-sided; flowers blue, turning purple (rarely white), 1-1.2 cm. long, reflexed; calyx-teeth shorter than the tube. Borders of thickets or in fields, Nfd. to N. J., w. to Ky., la., and Minn. June- Aug. (Eu.)

  • Alsike Clover (Trifolium hybridum)

    Red Clover (T. pratense) is more common and very similar, and grows in most of the same places. The best way to tell the difference is by the leaves, which in Red Clover usually (but not always) show a chevron pattern but are unmarked in Alsike Clover; and by the color of the flowers, which in Alsike Clover is less magenta and more pale rosy pink, with young white flowers in the center of the head. In fact, it does look like something halfway between Red Clover and White Clover (T. repens), which may account for the specific name hybridus for a plant that is not a hybrid.

    This plant grew in a meadow near Cranberry, where it was blooming in the middle of June.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TRIFOLIUM [Tourn.] L. CLOVER. TREFOIL

    Calyx persistent, 5-cleft, the teeth usually bristle-form. Corolla mostly withering or persistent; the claws of all the petals, or of all except the oblong or ovate standard, more or less united below with the stamen-tube; keel short and obtuse. Tenth stamen more or less separate. Pods small and membranous, often included in the calyx, 1-6-seeded, indehiscent, or opening by one of the sutures. Tufted or diffuse herbs. Leaves mostly palmately (sometimes pinnately) 3-foliolate; leaflets usually toothed. Stipules united with the petiole. Flowers in heads or spikes. (Name from tres, three, and folium, a leaf.)

    T. HYBRIDUM L. (ALSIKE C.) Resembling T. repens, but the stems erect or ascending, not rooting at the nodes; leaflets ovate, rounded at apex; flowers rose-tinted. Generally common. (Introd. from Eu.)

  • Everlasting Pea (Lathyrus latifolius)

    Everlasting Pea is a vigorous vine that can take over whole hillsides. It compensates us for the space it takes with a glorious array of flowers in shades from white through deep magenta, often (as here) with stripes or bicolor patterns.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    LATHYRUS [Tourn.] L. VETCHLING. EVERLASTING PEA

    Style dilated and flattish (not grooved) above, hairy along the inner side (next the free stamen). Sheath of the filaments scarcely oblique at the apex. Otherwise nearly as in Vicia. Our species perennial and mostly smooth plants. (Lathyros, a leguminous plant of Theophrastus.)

    L. latifolius L. (EVERLASTING or PERENNIAL PEA.) Tall perennial with broadly winged stems; leaves and stipules coriaceous and veiny; petioles mostly winged; the 2 elliptic to lanceolate leaflets 0.5-1 dm. long; peduncles stiff, many-flowered; flowers showy, pink, purple, or white. Frequently cultivated, and escaping to roadsides and thickets, Ct. to 1). C. (Introd. from Eu.)

    Another picture is here.

  • Red Clover (Trifolium pratense)

    This ubiquitous European import grows almost anywhere the grass isn’t mowed too frequently. It keeps blooming throughout the season: this flower was going strong in early November in Beechview. It came to America as a pasture crop, and soon found that it really liked our open spaces.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TRIFOLIUM [Tourn.] L. CLOVER. TREFOIL
    Calyx persistent, 5-cleft, the teeth usually bristle-form. Corolla mostly withering or persistent; the claws of all the petals, or of all except the oblong or ovate standard, more or less united below with the stamen-tube; keel short and obtuse. Tenth stamen more or less separate. Pods small and membranous, often included in the calyx, 1-6-seeded, indehiscent, or opening by one of the sutures. Tufted or diffuse herbs. Leaves mostly palmately (sometimes pinnately) 3-foliolate; leaflets usually toothed. Stipules united with the petiole. Flowers in heads or spikes. (Name from tres, three, and folium, a leaf.)

    T. PRATENSE L. (RED C.) Perennial; stems ascending, somewhat hairy; leaflets oval or obovate, often notched at the end and marked on the upper side with a pale spot; stipules broad, bristle-pointed; heads ovoid, sessile or not rarely pedunculate; corolla magenta to whitish; calyx soft-hairy. Fields and meadows; extensively cultivated. (Introd. from Eu.)

  • White Sweet Clover (Melilotus albus)

    The height of its season is the late spring and early summer, but don’t count White Sweet Clover out at any season. This plant was sticking its head through a chain-link fence in Beechview in early November. Imported for fodder, White Sweet Clover and the similar yellow species M. officinalis (almost indistinguishable until the flowers appear) have made themselves at home here to such an extent that some regard them as pests. Nevertheless, as nitrogen-fixers that cattle like to eat, they give us a lot in return for the inconvenience they cause us.

    Gray takes Melilotus as feminine, though modern botanists have conspired to claim the name for the masculine side. He describes the genus and species:

    MELILOTUS [Tourn.] Hill. MELILOT. SWEET CLOVER.
    Flowers much as in Trifolium, but in spike-like racemes, small. Corolla deciduous, free from the stamen-tube. Pod ovoid, coriaceous, wrinkled, longer than the calyx, scarcely dehiscent, 1-2-seeded. Annual or biennial herbs, fragrant in drying, with pinnately 3-foliolate leaves. (Name from meli, honey, and lotos, some leguminous plant.)

    M. ALBA Desr. (WHITE M.) Tall; leaflets narrowly obovate to oblong, serrate, truncate or emarginate ; corolla white, 4-5 mm. long, the standard longer than the other petals pod 3-4 mm. long, somewhat reticulate. Rich soil, roadsides, etc., common. (Nat. from Eu.)