Purple Vetch / Cow Pea
Family: Fabaceae (Bean, Pea, Legume Family)
Genus: Vicia | Species: americana
Description: This is a climbing legume plant often used as a cover crop; also known as American vetch, cow pea, or cow vetch. It has gray-green compound leaves and long, one-sided, crowded spikes of pea-like tubular blue-purple flowers in loose clusters. There are 17 different Vetches in the northeastern US. [mostly annual]
Habitat: Roadsides and fields, and sometimes heavy along cranberry dikes and bog edges; It can move onto a cranberry bed substantially if uncontrolled;
In Bloom: July – August (in Maine)
- Purple Vetch / Cowpea