Help Identifying possible Cow Vetch ?

[VikingPrincess]

I found a pretty little wild vine in our fields and my wildflower identification book shows the closest thing to what I saw was called "Cow Vetch" (Vicia cracca).  However the book and Googling shows the flowers to be bluish purple (more purple), and the flowers on the plant I had were a beautiful deep Indigo color.  I didn't have a camera handy, so I just pulled part of the vine to take to the house.  It had little 1 inch pea pods attached to it and the flowers looked like teeny tiny sweet peas, so I feel it must be from the Fabaceae family.  Also had vine tendrils too.  Does anyone know if this is cow vetch?

 

Here is a pic of cow vetch  (is not a pic of my plant)

 

[lavender]

VP, there are a number of vetches that it could be. My Newcomb has about 10 vetchs with purple-blue-pink flowers. Color is not all that accurate to identify flowers as the pictures are not always the color of the flower and flower colors will often vary with habitat and populations.  The only way to tell for sure is to use a wildflower key on a piece of the original plant. I'm not sure what kind of wild flower book you have but here is an on line key that is similar to the one I have. It should key it down for you.

The place you found it is consistent with the habitat for cow vetch.

http://www.2bnthewild.com/phvsixsc.htm

[VikingPrincess]

Thanks for your response, lavender.  The book I used is Newcomb's Wildflower Guide.  The leaves and flowers were consistent with the diagram in the book.  The book did not show the actual color, just said it was violet-blue.  Google pages showed it to be pretty purplish.  Mine was a vivid indigo blue so I wondered whther I had the correct thing, although everything else seemed consistent.

 

The pods were still green, I did remove them and have them in a baggie to see if I can plant them next year closer to my house.  A couple of weeks later, I went back over to dig them up but they were gone by then.  I had only seen 2 or 3 small vine lengths in the masses of other weeds, but there my be more next year, I imagine.  Do the pods have to be a certain maturity before you remove them from the plant for seeding?

[lavender]

Newcomb's Wildflower Guide is what I use as well. It is about as accurate as a non-technical guide can get and I sure wouldn't want to try to use a real taxonomic key any more. If it keyed down to cow vetch that is probably what it is. The worst thing that I have ever come up against in Newcomb is that specific plant just wasn't in it. You can usually get pretty close though down to genus at least.

The pods should probably be gathered when they turn brown. I have some pods turning brown right now on my what- do- you -call- it. Tall plant, blue flowers, legume; it'll come to me eventually.

From what I read your plant was used to feed cattle so I'm guessing that lots of other animals find the pods edible too. If you picked the pods fully formed they should be ok. Get them out of the plastic bag and let them dry out. It is supposed to be a good spreader so maybe you will find more next year.

[VikingPrincess]

I had them in an open jar till they dried, and now have them in a bag.  I had gone back to try to get some that were more mature but as I said, by then I couldn'.t find the plants

 

Thanks for the help, hopefully I can get some to grow next year close to the house.  They are really pretty!