Appearance
"Anthyllis vulneraria" reaches 5–40 centimetres of height. The stem is simple or more often branched. The leaves are imparipinnate, glabrous or with scattered hairs on the upper face and silky hairs on the underside.The flower heads are spherical in shape and 10–20 millimetres long. The flower are yellow in almost all sub-species, with the typical irregular shape of the flowers of legumes. Flowering takes place between June and September. The fruit is a legume. The fruits ripening takes place from July to October.
Kidney vetch is the foodplant of the small blue butterfly larvae.
Distribution
This plant is spontaneous in the entire Europe, from Iceland to the Mediterranean, in Asia Minor up to Iran, in North Africa and in Ethiopia. It is naturalized in North America.
Habitat
It prefers the dry grasslands and rocky environments with calcareous soil, up to 3000 m of altitude.References:
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