Vicia luteaL.

Yellow Vetchsmooth yellow vetchyellow-vetch

WFO wfo-0000212752 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Vicia lutea, photographed by Josep Gesti
fig. a Josep Gesti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-05-08 / obs. 195894629
Vicia lutea, photographed by Andrea Meucci
fig. b Andrea Meucci, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 194798272
Vicia lutea, photographed by scolym
fig. c scolym, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195753533
Vicia lutea, photographed by scolym
fig. d scolym, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 192763278
Vicia lutea, photographed by Rafael Medina
fig. e Rafael Medina, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 187650990
Vicia lutea, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. f Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183176404
Vicia lutea, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. g Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183176598
Vicia lutea, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. h Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183038873

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 29 botanical countries

Regions where Vicia lutea is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Egypt, Libya, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, East Aegean Is., Iran, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaEgyptLibyaMoroccoTunisiaEast Aegean Is.IranLebanon-SyriaPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaBulgariaFranceGreeceHungaryItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-Europe Canary Is.MadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Vicia lutea, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
France FRA
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
East Aegean Is. EAI ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
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 253 in flower of 260 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Vicia lutea 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. 253 of 260 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 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 34 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.

  • Hypechusa lutea (L.) Alef.
  • Hypechusa lutea var. amphiantha Alef.
  • Hypechusa lutea var. hirta (DC.) Alef.
  • Hypechusa lutea var. laevigata (Sm.) Alef.
  • Hypechusa lutea var. vestita (Boiss.) Alef.
  • Vicia boetica Schousb. ex Nyman
  • Vicia cavanillesii Martínez
  • Vicia ciliata Schur
  • Vicia flavida Schur
  • Vicia hirta DC.
  • Vicia hirta Balb. ex Pers.
  • Vicia hybrida Huds.
  • Vicia laevigata Sm.
  • Vicia lentiformis Schur
  • Vicia lerchenfeldiana Schur
  • Vicia lineata M.Bieb.
  • Vicia lutea f. glabrescens Trotter
  • Vicia lutea subsp. muricata (Ser.) Guinea
  • Vicia lutea var. glabra Regel
  • Vicia lutea var. hirta (DC.) Loisel.
  • Vicia lutea var. laevigata (Sm.) Boiss.
  • Vicia lutea var. muricata Ser.
  • Vicia lutea var. nitida Ball
  • Vicia lutea var. pallidiflora Ser.

and 10 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.