LEGUMINOSAE (PULSE FAMILY) 249 



starved by close, repeated, and persistent cutting throughout the 

 growing season. Or, as the finely downy foliage is somewhat sus- 

 ceptible to injury from chemical sprays, leaf-growth may be held 

 in check and seeding prevented by this means, but the treatment 

 must be repeated as often as the plants make recovery from the 

 roots. 



HAIRY VETCH 



Vicia villdsa, Roth. 



Other English names : Winter Vetch, Hairy Tare. 



Introduced. Annual or biennial. Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom: May to September. 



Seed-time: June to October. 



Range : Locally in most parts of the country, but most common in 



the southern states from Pennsylvania to Georgia. 

 Habitat: Fields, roadsides, and waste places. 



Hairy Vetch is frequently planted for a cover crop or for fodder, 

 and is inclined to persist or to escape to roadsides and waste places. 

 It resembles the Cow Vetch in form and habit, but is covered all 

 over, stems, leaves, and even flower-stalks and pods, with persistent, 

 long, soft hairs. Stems one to three feet long, with short, petioled 

 pinnate leaves having lance-like stipules and twelve to twenty 

 oblong leaflets, which are obtuse or varying to lance-shape or 

 linear. Racemes three to six inches long, many-flowered, with 

 rather short peduncles ; the blossoms are violet and white, often 

 nearly an inch long almost twice the length of those of Vicia 

 Cracca with calyx-lobes bristly hairy on the lower side and the 

 corollas not so slim, with standard and wings somewhat more 

 spreading. The hairy pods contain six or eight small, dark, 

 globular seeds. 



Means of control 



Destroy winter plants by hoe-cutting or by surface cultivating 

 of the ground, or they may be grazed off in early spring. Prevent 

 seed development by cutting while in first bloom and, if abun- 

 dant, curing for hay. All waste-land and roadside plants should 

 be destroyed. 



