Yellow vetch
Vicia lutea
Family · Fabaceae · Irritating
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The only yellow-flowered vetch in the Peninsula, which makes it instantly recognisable in a field full of purple vetches. The pods turn black and hairy as they dry.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Dunes and sand · Scrubland
Also known assmooth yellow vetch
How to tell it
A climbing or prostrate plant with leaves of five to ten pairs of narrow leaflets and a branched tendril at the tip. Pale yellow or cream flowers, often with purplish veins, solitary or in pairs and nearly stalkless at the axil. Flat pods covered in long hairs, black when ripe.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
Forage, no use for a walker. Like all wild vetches, the seeds contain vicine and convicine and are not eaten: in people with G6PD deficiency they trigger a haemolytic crisis, the same mechanism as favism.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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