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Spring Pea

Spring Pea

Lathyrus vernus

Identify the Spring Pea from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

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How common: Very common

Spring Pea is a low spring wildflower of European woodlands. It forms upright clumps and is among the first peas to bloom, with showy pea-flowers that open reddish purple and turn bluish as they age. You can spot it on forest floors before the trees are fully in leaf.

Did you know?

  • The flowers change colour from reddish purple to bluish as they age.
  • One of the first woodland peas to bloom in spring.

About the species

Identification

Perennial herb 20–40 cm tall with upright, sharply edged, almost smooth stems. Leaves have 2–4 pairs of oval, pointed leaflets and end in a point, not a tendril; at the base there are large, broad side lobes. Flower clusters rise from where the leaf meets the stem on a long stalk, often hang to one side, and carry 3–10 nodding pea-like flowers about 1.5–2 cm long. Fresh flowers are reddish purple and turn bluish with age. Pods 4–6 cm, smooth, dark brown to black when ripe, splitting open. Flowers in Finland in May–June.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

herb-rich forest

Flowering

May–Jun

About the habitat

Grows in rich broadleaf woods and fresh, half-shaded forests on fertile soils; also found in light, dry woodland on sandy ridges. Common in southern Finland, scarce in central Finland.

Sources

Photo: Robert Flogaus-Faust, CC BY 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lathyrus vernus 3 RF.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38993

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kev%C3%A4tlinnunherne

See also