sweet vetch

9.9

A long-lived western United States plant with pink to purple flowers and flat pods that split into round pieces

noun
/swit vɛtʃ/

: guisante dulce

In the foothills, the sweet vetch displays clusters of purple blooms each spring.

Examples

Farmers sometimes plant sweet vetch to improve soil nitrogen content.
The sweet vetch blooms beautifully in spring.
Botanists collected samples of sweet vetch for study in their native habitat.
Many gardeners love sweet vetches for their vibrant colors.
In the foothills, the sweet vetch displays clusters of purple blooms each spring.
Farmers sometimes plant sweet vetch to improve soil nitrogen content.
Botanists collected samples of sweet vetch for study in their native habitat.

Synonyms

Hedysarum boreale

vssweet vetch

Specialized

9.9

A plant from western North America that lives many years with purple flower clusters and flat seed pods

is the common everyday name for the same plant rather than the scientific term

Surface Forms

sweet vetch singular

sweet vetches plural

Morphology

sweet + vetch

This is a simple adjective + noun plant name: 'sweet' modifies 'vetch', so a learner who knows both words can infer it is a kind of vetch characterized as 'sweet' (in scent, taste, or name). Such compositional adjective+noun constructions for plant names are cross-linguistically common and therefore immediately understandable to B1 learners.

Etymology

Sweet vetch may come from people noticing the plant's flowers or young shoots taste or smell a little sweet and calling this kind of plant vetch because it belongs to the bean family. So the name simply means a vetch that is 'sweet', which helps you remember it is a type of 'plant'.