Vicia palaestina is a sparingly hairy or glabrescent annual herb that reaches up to 15-60 cm high with branched and climbing stems. The tendrils are branched. The leaves are 3-8 cm, compound with 6-10 pairs of 0.8-2.5 x 0.1-0.3 cm, short petioliolate, narrowly linear acute, mucronate leaflets. The peduncles are shorter than the subtending leaf. The flowers are with pale blue corolla and a hairy calyx and are arranged in 3-9-flowered racemes. The fruit is 1.5-2.5 x 0.5-0.8 cm pod, compressed, glabrous, rhombic-elliptical, reticulate-veined, 2-4-seeded, with a short beak. The seeds are smooth, globular, dark brown.
Mountainous Southern Sinai, Isthmic Desert, North Sinai.
East Mediterranean Region, Sinai.
Cultivated Fields and distributed ground.
Annual
Height: 15-60 cm
Vicia palaestina, the Palestine vetch, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. It is native to the eastern Mediterranean region; Greece, the Aegean Islands, Turkey, Cyprus, the Levant, Sinai, and Iraq.[1] Carbonized remains of its seeds have been tentatively identified in Mousterian Neanderthal deposits in Kebara Cave, Mount Carmel, Israel.[2] Unlike many species of vetch, its seeds are non-toxic, and are edible even when raw.[3]
Vicia palaestina, the Palestine vetch, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. It is native to the eastern Mediterranean region; Greece, the Aegean Islands, Turkey, Cyprus, the Levant, Sinai, and Iraq. Carbonized remains of its seeds have been tentatively identified in Mousterian Neanderthal deposits in Kebara Cave, Mount Carmel, Israel. Unlike many species of vetch, its seeds are non-toxic, and are edible even when raw.