Hairy Vetch

𝐍𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫?

Cavalry horses need a lot of food and a quick growing source is Hairy Vetch, 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐚, a member of the pea family often planted for fodder during the Napoleonic Wars.

But that’s not why there is an abundance of it on the margins of the Forest at the Parking at Rhode-St-Genèse as it is also included in seed mixes for soil improvement, pollinator strips, and biodiversity plantings. It is a primary coloniser, a ‘terraformer’, and, when the larger plants take hold, will retreat through lack of sunlight. Its seeds will find other places, they always do. Humans are good at soil disturbance.

You may just spot a bee in the photo, a bumble-one.