Common vetch
Vicia sativa
Family · Fabaceae · Irritating
Toxic
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The climber with purplish pink flowers that scrambles up cornfields on tendrils, deliberately sown as fodder and then gone feral everywhere.
Where it grows
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Montado
Also known asgarden vetch, tare
In flower
How to tell it
A compound leaf with many leaflet pairs and a branched tendril at the tip instead of a leaflet. Purplish pink flowers, one or two held against the stem. Straight pods turning black and popping in the sun.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
Fodder and green manure, one of the Peninsula's oldest crops. The raw seed contains toxic compounds and sustained human consumption caused documented problems in famine years: it is not a lentil substitute.