Family Leguminosae or Fabaceae (Pea Family).
Everlasting Pea is a vigorous vine that can take over whole hillsides. It compensates us for the space it takes with a glorious array of flowers in shades from white through deep magenta, often with stripes or bicolor patterns. Note also the winged stems. It’s called “everlasting” because it has flowers like the annual garden sweet pea, but it’s a perennial; thus another common name, “Perennial Sweet Pea.”
Gray describes the genus and the species:
LATHYRUS [Tourn.] L. VETCHLING. EVERLASTING PEA
Style dilated and flattish (not grooved) above, hairy along the inner side
(next the free stamen). Sheath of the filaments scarcely oblique at the
apex. Otherwise nearly as in Vicia. Our species perennial and
mostly smooth plants. (Lathyros, a leguminous plant of
Theophrastus.)
L. latifolius L. (EVERLASTING or PERENNIAL PEA.) Tall perennial with broadly winged stems; leaves and stipules coriaceous and veiny; petioles mostly winged; the 2 elliptic to lanceolate leaflets 0.5-1 dm. long; peduncles stiff, many-flowered; flowers showy, pink, purple, or white. Frequently cultivated, and escaping to roadsides and thickets, Ct. to 1). C. (Introd. from Eu.)
