Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Vine

General: Small annual, herbaceous vining or trailing herb, plants sparsely to densely villous, to 60 cm long.

Leaves: Pinnate, with mucronate or cuspidate tips, pedicels ending in tendrils, mostly 6 foliolate, the leaflets linear-oblong, 8-20 mm long, 1.5-6 mm wide.

Flowers: Peduncled racemes with 2 to many flowers, corollas pale blue to whitish or cream colored, 8-10 mm long, calyx teeth much shorter than to tube, stamens united below, style with a sub-apical tuft of hairs.

Fruits: Narrow, flat, 2-valves pods covered with fine, silky hairs, dehiscent.

Ecology: Found in pine forests from 5,500-8,000 ft (1676-2438 m); flowering July-September.

Notes: Look to the pods covered with fine, silky hairs and the corollas not more than 10 mm long and light blue to white, help identify this species.

Ethnobotany: There is no specific use of the species recorded, but the genus was used as food and forage.

Etymology: Vicia comes from the classical Latin name for this genus, while leucophaea means greyish white.

Synonyms: Vicia leucophaea var. mediocinta, Vicia mediocincta

Editor: LCrumbacher, 2011