A month ago I wrote about our wildflower meadow and at the time of writing it was predominantly white. A month later, the Wild Carrots are still in flower but the southern half of the meadow is now purple with Tufted Vetch, Vicia cracca. All this comes from a single plant, though I notice it has set seed and there is a much smaller plant to the north.
Tufted Vetch is a member of the Pea family (Fabaceae) and is a scrambling perennial herb that dies down completely in the winter. Indeed, this spring I wondered if I’d lost the plant, as I could find no sign of it when most of the other wild flowers in the meadow started to grow. I needn’t have worried – the plant is in rude health. It started to flower at the end of June and will continue into August. After it has flowered, four to eight seeds will be produced per pod. Each pod has a distinctive nail or claw-like tip.
My plant came in a pot but Tufted Vetch is found in most parts of the British Isles, in hedgerows, road verges, woodland edges, scrubby grassland and on river and canal banks. It can also be found in permanent pastures and hay meadows, provided these are cut late in the season after the plant has set seed. It doesn’t like permanently wet soil but grows in drier parts of marshes and fens. Outside Britain, Tufted Vetch occurs throughout Europe, in Greenland and in Asia as far east as Japan. It has been introduced to North America, where it is naturalised from Canada to South Carolina, including Minnesota. (It is sometimes considered to be invasive.) Its other English names include Cow Vetch, Bird Vetch, Blue Vetch and Boreal Vetch.
Tufted Vetch needs the support of other plants and it scrambles up their stems, using tendrils. But its leaves are fine enough to allow light to reach the plants that provide its support. I love Tufted Vetch’s single-sided clusters of blue-violet flowers and so do bees, especially the Common Carder Bee, Bombus pascuorum.
Bombus pascuorum (Common Carder Bee) on Tufted Vetch
Tufted Vetch can be used as a green manure or as a forage crop for cattle and, like other members of the Pea family, the plant has root nodules which contain nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Budgerigars and other pet birds are apparently fond of the seed and foliage.
According to the Plants For A Future website Tufted Vetch’s seeds can be eaten when cooked (boiled or roasted) and the leaves and young stems can be eaten if cooked. The leaves can also be used to make a tea. The plant can promote lactation – the technical name is “galactogogue“.
If you’d like to grow Tufted Vetch, it is quite easy to grow from seed. The tough seed coat inhibits germination, so you may need to be patient, or you can scarify the seed to speed things up.
