Once of Bad Repute.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 10

Once of Bad Repute.

A Garden Corner

TENDRILS of the „ Bush Vetch, Vicia Sepium, have been sent in from Purau with a request for information regarding its identity. The Vicia family includes such estimable members as Vicia faba, the Broad Pean, which, by the way, comes from Egypt, V. equina, the Horse Bean, which conies from Siberia, and V. hirsuta, the common Tare, which used to be much cultivated by farmers for winter stock feed. Excluding these the Vetch family is not held in very high repute, because they seed too freely to be welcome and are not of any decorative value. With most they are just weeds. St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 13,- relates one of the Lord’s parables of the farmer w’hose enemy came by night and sowed tares in his wheat field. It would be this wild vetch that is referred to, for it would be just about as abnoxious in a wheat field as Dodder amongst^clover. Several varieties of the' Vetch are native to Britain, and are becoming common here too. Growing two to three feet high, they assume a branching habit, climbing amongst grass or flowers with tenacious freedom. The small pea-shaped flowers are rosy purple, followed by clusters of small pods holding two to six dark seeds. It is very strong rooting as will be noticed when 3veeding_ them out of the flower bed. You must get below the ground line to pull them out. T. D. LENNIE.