Flora of North America species comparison

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Vicia ludoviciana

deerpea vetch, Louisiana vetch, slender vetch
Habit Herbs annual or winter annual.
Stems

sprawling or climbing, slender to robust, 2–20 dm.
Leaves

2–10 cm;

tendrils branched;

stipules much smaller than leaflets, semisagittate, without nectariferous patch;

leaflets 7–14, blades ovate to linear, 5–25 × 1–11 mm, apex acute to emarginate, surfaces glabrous or puberulent.
Inflorescences

2–19-flowered, 1–15 cm, or flowers 1, ± shorter than subtending leaf rachis.
Flowers

4–7 mm;

calyx base symmetric, lobes subequal, shorter than or equal to tube;

corolla deep blue to bluish purple or pinkish white to light lavender, banner pandurate, blade equal to or longer than claw, glabrous;

style compressed adaxially, pubescent apically.
Legumes

yellow to brown, flat, rhombic-oblong, 16–30 × 4–6 mm, oblique-tipped, glabrous;

stipe to 1 mm.
Seeds

4–8, brownish gray, mottled dark purple, subglobose to compressed-subglobose, 2.2–2.5 mm diam.;

hilum encircling 1/4–1/3 circumference of seed.

Vicia ludoviciana
Distribution
from USDA
North America; n Mexico
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).

J. S. Lassetter (1984) showed that the taxa traditionally treated as Vicia exigua, V. leavenworthii, V. ludoviciana, and V. producta are morphologically confluent and part of one evolving species complex. Within the complex, there is a strong tendency toward cleistogamy in populations traditionally delimited as V. leavenworthii: styles and anthers are shorter and pollination takes place before flowers open and peduncles fully elongate. Lassetter treated cleistogamous populations as var. leavenworthii and all other populations as var. ludoviciana.

J. S. Lassetter (1984), D. Isely (1998), and S. L. Broich (2007) presented more detailed treatments of vars. leavenworthii and ludoviciana, delimiting two races within var. leavenworthii and five races within var. ludoviciana.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Leaflets 7–10(–14); flowers opening after peduncle and internode elongation, without young fruit when first open.
var. ludoviciana
1. Leaflets 11–14; flowers opening before peduncle and internode elongation, usually with young fruit when first open.
var. leavenworthii
Source FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Vicia
Sibling taxa
V. acutifolia, V. americana, V. benghalensis, V. caroliniana, V. cracca, V. disperma, V. faba, V. floridana, V. grandiflora, V. hassei, V. hirsuta, V. lathyroides, V. leucophaea, V. lutea, V. minutiflora, V. narbonensis, V. nigricans, V. ocalensis, V. pannonica, V. pulchella, V. sativa, V. sepium, V. tetrasperma, V. villosa
Subordinate taxa
V. ludoviciana var. leavenworthii, V. ludoviciana var. ludoviciana
Name authority Nuttall ex Torrey & A. Gray: Fl. N. Amer. 1: 271. (1838)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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