Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Vicia nigricans

Vicia villosa

black vetch, giant vetch, spring vetch, tiny vetch

fodder vetch, hairy or winter or woolly vetch, hairy vetch, shaggy vetch, slender vetch, winter vetch, woolly vetch
Habit Herbs annual or biennial.
Stems

erect, sprawling, or climbing, slender, 2–13 dm.
Leaves

4–9 cm;

tendrils branched;

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

leaflets 10–18, blades narrowly oblong to linear, 10–35 × 1–10 mm, apex obtuse to acute or apiculate, surfaces glabrate to villous.
Inflorescences

10–20+-flowered, 3–19 cm, longer than subtending leaf rachis.
Flowers

12–18 mm;

calyx base gibbous, lobes unequal, usually longer than tube;

corolla violet to rose and white, banner pandurate, blade 1/2 length of claw, glabrous;

style compressed adaxially, pubescent apically.
Legumes

tawny, oblong, 15–40 × 6–11 mm, oblique-tipped, glabrous;

stipe to 2–3 mm.
Seeds

2–8, black to blackish brown, globose to ovoid-oblong, 3–5 mm diam.;

hilum encircling 1/7 circumference of seed.

Vicia nigricans

Vicia villosa
Distribution
from USDA
w North America; s South America (Argentina, Chile)
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from USDA
Europe; c Asia; sw Asia; n Africa [Introduced in North America; introduced also in South America, Australia]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 2 (1 in the flora).

Variety nigricans is known from Pacific coastal areas of southern South America.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Varieties 5 (2 in the flora).

Vicia villosa was introduced as a forage crop and has become widely established in North America. It can be distinguished from the similar V. cracca by its distinctly asymmetric (gibbous) calyx base and banner blade half the length of the claw.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Herbs villous, hairs conspicuous, 1–2 mm; inflo­rescences 20+-flowered, flowers crowded on rachis; adaxial calyx lobe acicular, 2–4 mm.
var. villosa
1. Herbs glabrate, hairs inconspicuous, subap­pressed to spreading, 1 mm; inflorescences 10–20-flowered, flowers loosely arranged on rachis; adaxial calyx lobe lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 1–2(–2.4) mm.
var. glabrescens
Source FNA vol. 11. FNA vol. 11.
Parent taxa Fabaceae > subfam. Faboideae > Vicia 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. ludoviciana, V. lutea, V. minutiflora, V. narbonensis, V. ocalensis, V. pannonica, V. pulchella, V. sativa, V. sepium, V. tetrasperma, V. villosa
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. ludoviciana, V. lutea, V. minutiflora, V. narbonensis, V. nigricans, V. ocalensis, V. pannonica, V. pulchella, V. sativa, V. sepium, V. tetrasperma
Subordinate taxa
V. nigricans var. gigantea
V. villosa var. glabrescens, V. villosa var. villosa
Name authority Hooker & Arnott: Bot. Beechey Voy., 20. (1830) Roth: Tent. Fl. Germ. 2(2): 182. (1793)
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).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers