Vicia cracca
Tufted vetch

Alaska Wildflowers | Purple

Vicia cracca
Tufted vetch

Common Names

vesce jargeau (French)
tufted vetch
bird vetch
Canada pea
cow vetch

*There is little agreement on synonyms and subspecies between floras and databases, so I’m flagging which ones are used for each below.

Synonyms

Synonyms listed by ITIS:
Vicia semicincta
Vicia tenuifolia
Vicia cracca ssp. cracca
Vicia cracca ssp. tenuifolia
Vicia dalmatica
Vicia elegans
Vicia inciana
Vicia cracca ssp. grossheimii
Vicia cracca ssp. incana
Vicia cracca ssp. stenophylla

50 synonyms listed by Kew

Subspecies

Vicia cracca var. angustissima (FNA)
Vicia cracca ssp. cracca (FNA, FBC, NatureServe, Canadensys)
Vicia cracca ssp. tenuifolia (NatureServe)
Vidia cracca subsp. oreophila (GBIF)

Genus: Vicia (vetch)
Family: Fabaceae (legumes, peas)
Order: Fabales
taxonomic heirarchy

Etymology

The genus name Vicia is the Latin word for vetch, a climbing leguminous herb, possibly used by Pliny. The word may be related to vincire, “to bind,” since vetch climbs by lashing itself to neighboring plants. Linnaeus formalized the genus in 1753.

The epithet cracca is the Latin name for a pulse or legume. It once stood as a separate genus, and it still survives as the section name within Vicia.

The three most common names are: “bird vetch”, often used in Alaska, likely because birds eat the seeds; “tufted vetch”, which describes the flowers; and “cow vetch”, for its use as livestock food and green manure.

Duration – Growth Habit

Perennial – Forb/herb

Identification and Information

Vegetative Morphology

Vicia cracca is a perennial herb up to 2 m long. The stems are climbing or trailing. The leaves are alternate, pinnately compound, 2-8 cm long, with 10-28 leaflets. There are branched tendrils at the tip of the leaf for grasping. The leaflets are narrowly oblong or elliptic to linear, or linear to lance-elliptic with a pointed tip.

Bird vetch is aggressively invasive in Alaska. Its branched tendrils grab and wrap neighboring plants, allowing it to climb and blanket them under a dense mat that shades out the vegetation below. It grows quickly, is a long-lived perennial that spreads by both seed and rootstock, and flowers prolifically, producing many seeds. Introduced to the Fairbanks and Palmer areas as a forage crop, it is now one of the most familiar invasive plants across Interior and Southcentral Alaska.

Reproductive Morphology

The inflorescence is a 4-20 cm (1.5-8 inch) raceme of 10-50 (up to 70 according to Flora of BC) densely packed flowers. The flowers are 8-16 mm long with two-toned (dark and pale) blue, blue-violet, to reddish-purple corollas, and crowded to one side of the raceme. The calyces are half the length of the corollas, and the calyx tube is 2-3 mm long. The upper blade is about equal in length or slightly smaller than the claw.

Legumes are broadly oblong, 15-30 mm long with 4-8 dark gray to purple-brown seeds.

Uses

For information only (typically historical) – I take no responsibility for adverse effects from the use of any plant.

Tea can be made from the leaves. It’s used as a forage crop for cattle and can enrich soil due to its nitrogen-fixing properties.

Distribution and Habitat

Map data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), NatureServe Explorer, and Kew

Vicia cracca is native throughout most of Eurasia but is likely an introduced species in North America and several countries in the Southern Hemisphere. It is considered a highly invasive weed in most areas where it is not native and tends to dominate disturbed soil.

Its primary habitats are fields, clearings, thickets, open forests, and waste ground. In Alaska, it spreads along roadsides and disturbed corridors.

Classification

References and Further Reading

Guidebook

Pratt, V. E. (1989). Field Guide to Alaskan Wildflowers: Commonly Seen Along Highways and Byways. Alaskakrafts, inc.

Johnson, D., Kershaw, L., & MacKinnon, A. (2020). Plants of the Western Forest: Alaska to Minnesota Boreal and Aspen Parkland (3rd ed., p. 140-141). Partners Publishing. ISBN 978-1772130591.

Classification and Taxonomy

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. (n.d.). Vicia cracca. Plants of the World Online. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:30263827-2

Brouillet, L., Coursol, F., Meades, S. J., Favreau, M., Anions, M., Bélisle, P., & Desmet, P. (n.d.). Vicia cracca. Database of Vascular Plants of Canada (VASCAN). Canadensys. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://data.canadensys.net/vascan/taxon/5943?lang=en

Integrated Taxonomic Information System. (n.d.). Vicia cracca (TSN 26335). Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=26335#null

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. (n.d.). Vicia cracca (VICR). PLANTS Database. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/plant-profile/VICR

Etymology

Harper, D. (n.d.). Vetch. Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/vetch

Wiktionary contributors. (n.d.). Vicia. Wiktionary. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vicia

Uses

University of Michigan CLIMBERS Project. (n.d.). Vicia cracca. https://climbers.lsa.umich.edu/vicia-cracca/

Map and Distribution

NatureServe. (n.d.). Vicia cracca. NatureServe Explorer. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.143230/Vicia_cracca

GBIF Secretariat. (n.d.). Vicia cracca (GBIF Taxon 5BCMF). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://www.gbif.org/taxon/5BCMF

iNaturalist. (n.d.). Vicia cracca. iNaturalist. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/52471-Vicia-cracca

Description and Information

Hultén, E. (1968). Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories: A Manual of the Vascular Plants (1st ed.) (pg. 671). Stanford University Press.

Flora of North America Editorial Committee. (n.d.). Vicia cracca. Flora of North America. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://floranorthamerica.org/Vicia_cracca

Klinkenberg, B. (Ed.). (n.d.). Vicia cracca. E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia. Lab for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://linnet.geog.ubc.ca/Atlas/Atlas.aspx?sciname=Vicia%20cracca&redblue=Both&lifeform=7

Graziano, G., Grant, A., & Wurtz, T. (n.d.). Control of bird vetch (Vicia cracca) (Publication PMC-00341). University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. https://www.uaf.edu/ces/publications/database/gardening/files/pdfs/PMC-00341-Control-of-Bird-Vetch.pdf

Lapina, I. (n.d.). Vicia cracca L.: Invasiveness ranking [Weed risk assessment]. Alaska Center for Conservation Science, University of Alaska Anchorage. https://accs.uaa.alaska.edu/wp-content/uploads/Vicia_cracca_RANK_VICRC.pdf