Wild Vetch

Vicia americana

Hosts 4 caterpillarsPollinator plantNitrogen fixer

Growing it

When	Flowers June to July
Type	vine
Sun	Full sun, partial shade
Water	Low, medium
Soil	pH 5.5–7.5
Hardiness	zone 2–7
Mature height	0.8 m
Mature spread	0.45 m
Spacing	0.3 m
Years to maturity	1
Bloom	Jun–Jul
Flower colour	Purple read from a published flora
In bloom	June July
Native to	AB, SK

feather-compound leaves about 8 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

483 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 139 herbarium specimens and 1,567 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 880 records, high confidence
Moist Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 537 records, high confidence
Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 262 records, high confidence
Northern Continental Divide south AB: 239 records, high confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 228 records, high confidence
Boreal Transition central AB / SK: 205 records, high confidence
Western Alberta Upland central AB: 138 records, high confidence
Cypress Upland south AB / SK: 122 records, high confidence
Mid-Boreal Uplands central AB / SK: 122 records, high confidence
Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 102 records, high confidence
Peace Lowland north AB: 56 records, high confidence
Slave River Lowland north AB: 24 records, high confidence
Wabasca Lowland north AB: 13 records, medium confidence
Western Boreal central AB: 10 records, medium confidence
Hay River Lowland north AB: 8 records, medium confidence
Churchill River Upland north SK: 4 records, low confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

34 documented relationships.

nectar for

A Digger Bee Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Andrena lupinorum Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Arctic Skipper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Boisduval's Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Brown-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Canadian Tiger Swallowtail Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Eastern Tailed-Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Eucera frater Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Euclidia ardita Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Golden Northern Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Greenish Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Half-black Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Hobomok Skipper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Hoplitis hypocrita LaManna et al. 2020
Hunt's Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Melissa Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Nevada Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Northern Amber Bumble Bee Clint Otto et al. 2020
Orange-banded Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Osmia albolateralis Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Osmia odontogaster Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Parnassius clodius Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Red-belted Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Silver-spotted Skipper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Silvery Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Tricoloured Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Two-ranked Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Western Tailed-Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Yellow-banded Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Yellow-fronted Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org

caterpillar host for

Clouded Sulphur Acorn & Sheldon 2006
Silver-spotted Skipper Acorn & Sheldon 2006
Silvery Blue Acorn & Sheldon 2006
Western Tailed-Blue Acorn & Sheldon 2006

Also worth knowing

Safety

Low toxicity to pets; Low toxicity to people

Buying it

About $15–$35 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (vine default); AB retail as of 2026

Where these numbers came from

Flower detail: not verified, a genus-level estimate