246 LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 



Cattle will eat this plant when it is young if there is no better 

 forage, but it soon becomes hard and innutritions. Stems one to 

 three feet tall, much branched, slender and spreading, sparsely 

 hairy. Leaves few and rather small, pinnately three-foliolate, the 

 leaflets a half-inch to two inches long, thin, oblong or elliptic, 

 bristle-tipped, finely appressed-hairy on the under side; petioles 

 often scarcely longer than the footstalk of the middle leaflet. 

 Flowers in small axillary clusters on very slender peduncles much 

 longer than the leaves ; corolla violet-purple, about a quarter-inch 

 long, the keel often longer than the standard. Pod ovate, pointed, 

 flattened, net-veined, about a sixth of an inch long, containing one 

 seed. (Fig. 175.) 



Means of control 



Cut before the earliest flowers mature seeds. 



Cultivate and liberally fertilize the ground, reseeding it with 

 clovers of a better quality which will smother the growth of this 

 weed from dormant seeds. 



COMMON VETCH 



Vicia satlva, L. 



Other English names : Spring Vetch, Pebble Vetch, Tare. 



Introduced. Annual or winter annual. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: June to August. 



Seed-time: July to September. 



Range: Eastern Canada and New England to the Dakotas, and 



southward to the Gulf of Mexico. Also on the Pacific Coast. 

 Habitat: Grain fields, meadows, roadsides, waste places. 



This is the Vetch most commonly grown as a forage plant, and as 

 a weed it is often a survival of former cultivation by means of self- 

 sown, dormant seeds. Also the seeds are sometimes sown as an 

 impurity with grass and grain seeds, and in such places it makes 

 itself a nuisance by entangling and pulling down the crop, making 

 the harvest difficult. (Fig. 176.) 



Stems one to three feet long, simple or branching from the 

 base, hairy when young but later becoming smooth. Leaves 

 pinnately compound, with broad, sharply toothed stipules 



