Vicia benghalensisL.

reddish tufted vetchpurple vetch

WFO wfo-0000212730 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Vicia benghalensis, photographed by Dominic Gentilcore
fig. a Dominic Gentilcore, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-30 / obs. 202363509

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 15 botanical countries

Regions where Vicia benghalensis is native: Algeria, Azores, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaWestern SaharaCorseFranceGreeceItalyPortugalSiciliaSpain AzoresMadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Vicia benghalensis, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Baleares BAL EUROPE
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA

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 236 in flower of 244 examined

Proportion of examined Vicia benghalensis in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 2 2 too few examined
Feb 7 7 100% 65% to 100%
Mar 31 33 94% 80% to 98%
Apr 94 97 97% 91% to 99%
May 62 63 98% 92% to 100%
Jun 9 9 100% 70% to 100%
Jul 1 1 too few examined
Aug 5 5 100% 57% to 100%
Sep 11 12 92% 65% to 99%
Oct 11 12 92% 65% to 99%
Nov 3 3 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Vicia benghalensis 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. 236 of 244 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 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.

Also published as 31 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.

  • Cracca albicans (Lowe) Alef.
  • Cracca atropurpurea (Desf.) Gren. & Godr.
  • Cracca atropurpurea (Desf.) Gren. & Godr.
  • Cracca benghalensis (L.) Medik.
  • Cracca broteriana (Ser.) Alef.
  • Cracca linifolia Alef.
  • Vicia albicans Lowe
  • Vicia aquitanica Clavaud
  • Vicia atropurpurea Desf.
  • Vicia atropurpurea f. alba Rainha
  • Vicia atropurpurea prol. perennis (DC.) Rouy
  • Vicia atropurpurea subsp. calycina Rouy
  • Vicia atropurpurea var. perennis (DC.) P.Fourn.
  • Vicia atropurpurea var. punicea Willk.
  • Vicia atropurpurea var. sericea Willk.
  • Vicia atropurpurea var. tenella Willk.
  • Vicia benghalensis subsp. aquitanica Quézel & Santa
  • Vicia benghalensis subsp. atropurpurea (Desf.) Nègre
  • Vicia benghalensis var. atropurpurea (Desf.) Maire
  • Vicia benghalensis var. heterocalyx Maire & Weiller
  • Vicia benghalensis var. perennis (DC.) Pau
  • Vicia benghalensis var. simulans (Maire) Hormat
  • Vicia biflora Webb & Berthel.
  • Vicia broteriana Ser.

and 7 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.