Common Name

Square-stemmed Vetch, Spurred Vetch, One-flower Vetch

Family

Fabaceae

Notes

Introduced climbing annual forb to 80cm tall, or prostrate. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, with 8-16 leaflets, each 0.5-3cm long, 1-8mm wide, flat, hairless to hairy, tips rounded or notched, sometimes with a small point. Flowers pea-shaped, blue to purple, with 5 petals, 2 almost joined together. Flowers in 1-7 flowered racemes, stalks arising from the bases of the leaves.

Ssp. monantha has flowers in groups of 1-2, and brown seeds. Ssp. triflora has flowers in groups of 2-7, and black seeds.

Description of both subspecies and photo of Vicia monantha ssp. triflora  in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales pages 428-429

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Vicia~monantha

Photo of plant (ssp. triflora). Photo: Luigi Rignanese, Italy