Lathyrus niger(L.) Bernh.

Black Peablack pea

WFO wfo-0000212694 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Lathyrus niger, photographed by Елена Смирнова
fig. a Елена Смирнова, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205496299
Lathyrus niger, photographed by Angelika Baumann
fig. b Angelika Baumann, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203171037
Lathyrus niger, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. c Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201293664
Lathyrus niger, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. d Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201294954
Lathyrus niger, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. e Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201302413
Lathyrus niger, photographed by Eleftherios Katsillis
fig. f Eleftherios Katsillis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199207568
Lathyrus niger, photographed by olrett
fig. g olrett, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192940099
Lathyrus niger, photographed by Patrick Hacker
fig. h Patrick Hacker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 136238595

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 35 botanical countries

Regions where Lathyrus niger is native: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Lathyrus niger, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Lebanon-Syria LBS ASIA-TEMPERATE
North Caucasus NCS
Türkiye TUR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 114 in flower of 154 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Lathyrus niger observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 114 of 154 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 7 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,955 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -10.5 °C -5.2 °C -0.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.6 °C 23.6 °C 27.0 °C
Annual rainfall 563 mm 695 mm 1,271 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 87 mm 119 mm 219 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,955 research-grade observations of Lathyrus niger that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 29 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Lathyrus fiorii Sennen
  • Lathyrus jordani (Ten.) Ces., Pass. & Gibelli
  • Lathyrus jordanii (Ten.) Ces., Pass. & Gibelli
  • Lathyrus niger f. angulatus (Peterm.) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Lathyrus niger f. heterophyllus (R.Uechtr.) Beck
  • Lathyrus niger f. heterophyllus (Uechtr.) Bernh.
  • Lathyrus niger f. latifolius (Rouy) Borza
  • Lathyrus niger f. longipes (Rohlena) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Lathyrus niger f. protensus (Rohlena) Rohlena
  • Lathyrus niger f. rotundifolius Beck
  • Lathyrus niger f. transiens (Rouy) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Lathyrus niger var. angustifolius Rouy
  • Lathyrus niger var. genuinus Rouy
  • Lathyrus niger var. heterophyllus (R.Uechtr.) R.Uechtr.
  • Lathyrus niger var. latifolius Rouy
  • Lathyrus niger var. longipes (Rohlena) H.Lindb.
  • Lathyrus niger var. protensus Rohlena
  • Lathyrus niger var. transiens Rouy
  • Lathyrus rifeus Pau & Sennen
  • Menkenia nigrescens Bubani
  • Orobus exaltatus Ten. & Guss.
  • Orobus jordanii Ten.
  • Orobus niger L.
  • Orobus niger var. angulatus Peterm.

and 5 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.