Vicia sylvaticaL.

wood vetch

WFO wfo-0000214067 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Sigitas Juzėnas
fig. a Sigitas Juzėnas, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-09 / obs. 196301503
Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. b Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 190132974
Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Julustan Sivtsev
fig. c Julustan Sivtsev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165413358
Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. d Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 162725575
Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. e Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157086875
Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. f Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157083931
Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. g Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157088541
Vicia sylvatica, photographed by Evgenii Iaitskii
fig. h Evgenii Iaitskii, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 168952400

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 32 botanical countries

Regions where Vicia sylvatica is native: Altay, Buryatiya, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, West Siberia, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AltayBuryatiyaIrkutskKazakhstanKrasnoyarskWest SiberiaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyHungaryIrelandItalyNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Vicia sylvatica, 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
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
West Siberia WSB

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 271 in flower of 300 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Vicia sylvatica 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. 271 of 300 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 10 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 sylvatica (L.) Opiz
  • Ervilia sylvatica (L.) Schur
  • Ervum silvaticum (L.) Peterm.
  • Vicia foetens Gilib.
  • Vicia halleri Crantz
  • Vicia sylvatica var. violacea Behm
  • Vicia tetragona Desf.
  • Vicilla sylvatica (L.) Schur
  • Vicioides sylvatica (L.) Moench
  • Wiggersia sylvatica (L.) G.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb.

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.