Family: Fabaceae
Mongolian name: Khulganiin gish
English name: Cow vetch, Bird vetch
Collection Number: 12
More than 40Vicia species of the Fabaceae family are economically important, primarily as a livestock feed additive for the seed protein content. Vicia faba (faba beans) was domesticated in the southern Levant as early as ~10,200 cal BP (Caracuta et al. 2015), and other Vicia species are also cultivated for agricultural and medicinal purposes, including for asthma, rheumatism, and hemorrhoids (Salehi et al. 2020). Vicia cracca specifically, known as tufted vetch, bird vetch, cow vetch, or blue vetch, is common forage for cattle in North America, where it was introduced. The native range is in Eurasia. In Turkey, the fruit of V. cracca is used to treat coughs.
Citations
Caracuta, Valentina, Omry Barzilai, Hamudi Khalaily, Ianir Milevski, Yitzhak Paz, Jacob Vardi, Lior Regev, and Elisabetta Boaretto. 2015. The Onset of Faba Bean Farming in the Southern Levant. Scientific Reports 5(1):14370. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep14370.
Hayta, Sukru, Rıdvan Polat, and Selami Selvi. 2014. Traditional Uses of Medicinal Plants in Elazığ (Turkey). Journal of Ethnopharmacology 154(3):613–623. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2014.04.026.
Salehi, Bahare, Ibrahim M. Abu-Reidah, Farukh Sharopov, Natallia Karazhan, Javad Sharifi-Rad, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Daniyal, et al. 2021. Vicia Plants-A Comprehensive Review on Chemical Composition and Phytopharmacology. Phytotherapy Research: PTR 35(2):790–809. https://doi.org/10.1002/ptr.6863.
Sandiford, Jenny. 2021. “Summer Wild Flowers Mongolia.” Accessed July 9. https://www.jennysandiford.com/travelblog.
“Vicia cracca – bird vetch, cow vetch.” Simple Key. Native Plant Trust Go Botany. Accessed August 1. https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/species/vicia/cracca/.
“Vicia cracca.” 2024. Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Accessed August 1. https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:30263827-2.
Reference Collection 