Wild Peavine: Purple, violet and pink wildflowers

Wild Peavine © SB

Wild Peavines were in glorious bloom along the shady edges of several Saskatchewan grid roads and fields I walked along in mid-July, their purple, pink and violet flowers glowing in a tangle of wild growth.

Each of the flowers are about half an inch or smaller, so even a cluster can be easy to pass by... But if you stop and look closer, what beauty!

Wild Peavines are perennial climbing plants, whose habitat includes "margins of aspen poplar groves, and relatively open areas inside such groves." (Vance-Jowsey)

And yes, they are yet another legume, but their leaves are bigger than those of wild vetches, and the Peavines I saw also seemed to have bigger, brighter clusters of flowers.

I haven't seen these in the south, which makes sense as Budd's Flora explains that Wild Peavines are more common in the Boreal forest and Aspen Parkland eco-regions of Saskatchewan. (And yes, Muenster, the area where these pix were taken, is in the Parklands.) The same source says Wild Peavines were a valuable source of forage and hay in the earlier days of settlement in the northern bushlands. I hope people enjoyed their colours, too!

Cascade of bright purples and pinks, from Wild Peavine © SB

Wild Peavine's clusters of bright flowers, with wide oval leaves.  © SB

Prairie Wildflower: Wild Peavine

Location:  Near Muenster, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Photo Dates: July 20 and 21, 2014. 

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