i 54 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 



again by insects which gradually remove the pollen, and the stigma 

 becomes sticky receiving pollen from other Mowers. In spite of the 

 close fitting of the parts, the honey in the flowers is easily reached by 

 bees, as the flowers are small. 



The visitors are Apidse, Vespidae, Diptera (Empidse), Lepicloptera, 

 Small White (Pieris rapa). 



The woody fibres of the pods are directed at half a right angle to 

 the axis of the pod, and when ripe the valves curl up corkscrew-wise, 

 when dry, shooting the seeds out in all directions. 



Tufted Vetch is addicted to a more or less sandy humus soil, or 

 sandy loam, growing on a great variety of rock soils from the early 

 Cambrian to Pleistocene or Glacial beds. 



The " rust ", Uromvces fabce, attacks this plant, also U. pisi and 

 Ascochyta fiist, and it is galled by a beetle, Apion gyllenhalli, and 

 visited by Apion craccfe and Crepidodera rnfipes, the moth New Black 

 Neck (Toxocampa craccte), and the Heteropterous insect Strongylocoris 

 leucocephalus. 



Vicia, Varro, is from a Latin root meaning to bind, from the 

 tendrils. Vetch is the same as Pitch. Cracca, Dodonaeus, is said to 

 be from a Greek root meaning croak. 



Tufted Vetch is called Blue Tar-fitch, Cat-peas, Cow Vetch, Wild 

 Fetches, Huggaback Pea, Tar Grass, Wild Tare, Thetch Grass, Tine, 

 Tine Grass, Tare, Tine W 7 eed. 



There is a proverb: 



" A thetch will go through 

 The bottom of an old shoe." 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



89. Vicia Cracca, L. Stem climbing, tall, with branched tendrils, 

 leaflets in 10 pairs, narrow, acute, downy, stipules semi -sagittate, 

 entire; flower-stalks long, lateral, flowers numerous, purple, 10-30 in 

 raceme. 



Meadow Vetchling ( Lathy rus pratensis, L.) 



The recent distribution, which is all we have knowledge of so far 

 of Meadow Vetchling, shows that it is confined to the Northern 

 Temperate and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, N. and W. Asia as far 

 as the Himalayas, and it has been introduced into North America. In 

 Great Britain it is common everywhere as far north as Shetland, and 

 ascends in the Highlands to a height of over 1500 ft. It is a native of 

 Ireland and the Channel Islands. 



