Flower Identification Help

[Thomas Maurice Booth]

This plant is growing in my front yard. The plant seems to be a creeper and is attaching itself to the bush in the background. The seed pods look almost like pea pods, but then the turn brown and twist open, as can be seen in the picture. I've been all over google trying to identify it. I was thinking it could be some sort of milkweed, but I am not sold on that answer.

Any help is much appreciated.

TMB

[MikeW]

Some kind of milkweed sounds about right.

I've also heard people call it "vetch".

The closest match I can find is "Purple vetch" or "Vicia Americana", but there are also cultivars with names like "Vicia Grandiflora"

Nope - Grandiflora is white or yellow. This guy is probably either Vicia Sativa (an imported annual) or Vicia Americana , a native perennial.

[Thomas Maurice Booth]

Vetch looks about right to me. Thanks for the help. TubeNet comes through again!

TMB

[Dan Schultz]

Those are hyacinth beans. They aren't invasive... just like to climb fences where they can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyacinth_bean

[Donn]

Lathyrus latifolius

A perennial sweet pea that's a bit of a weed. Easily discouraged, though.

The flowers will get you to "the pea family", which includes all the above wild guesses (not milkweed though.) From there, the distinctive feature of this one is the winged stems. I fail to see how Google would be any help with plant taxonomy.

[MikeW]

I fail to see how Google would be any help with plant taxonomy.

Exactly! I can show you plenty of examples of this plant growing wild near here, but I couldn't find a recognisable picture of it on the web. I was looking under Vetch, but it only seems to show up under everlasting sweetpea.

Since you gave us the answer, I did find one picture of this plant (with the winged stems) under bush vetchling, and labeled Lathyrus Eucosmus, or "Seemly Sweetpea", but I'm pretty sure that was mistaken identity.

[Donn]

I don't believe I've ever seen L. eucosmus, I'm guessing that it doesn't tend to show up on people's doorsteps like L. latifolius. It's apparently similar, but with more leaflets per leaf, where latifolius leaves are divided into only two leaflets. This is a fairly big genus in a very big family, so there are going to be lots of vaguely similar species. There could be one or two that would be hard to tell from latifolius without getting into details about the stipules and so forth. But latifolius is the one that shows up in your shrubberies.