AMERICAN VETCH

AMERICAN VETCH GROWING AMONG  ROADSIDE GRASSES...

...PURPLE FLOWER SPIKES...

...COMPOUND LEAVES

Saturday, 8:30 AM.  70 degrees F at the ferry dock, 69 on the back porch.  Wind WSW, calm with light gusts. The sky is mostly cloudy and hazy, the humidity 84%.  The barometer is taking a dive, now at 29.80". It will be a moderately hot, humid and hazy day with rain predicted for later this evening.  I am pleased that I got most of my outdoor painting done yesterday and that it has had a chance to dry.
   American vetch, Vicea americana, in the Pea Family, the Leguminosae, is an unassuming little herb that would easily go unnoticed in the roadside grasses except for its spikes of purple flowers that, unusual for their color, draw one's eye to it.  It is a trailing or climbing herb that has typical, but diminutive, pea flowers attached to an upright flower spike, and many leaflets to a pinnately compound leaflet.  It has terminal tendrils for climbing.
   American vetch is common throughout much of North America and is useful as an under story plant  in reforestation projects.