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  • Vetchling (Lathyrus species): flowering and fruiting stems. Colour nature print by H. Bradbury.
  • A bunch of sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus). Coloured lithograph, c. 1850, after Guenébeaud.
  • A bunch of flowering sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus var.). Chromolithograph, c. 1878, after H. Moon.
  • An 'everlasting' pea plant (Lathyrus latifolius): flowers and leaf. Chromolithograph, c. 1879, after F. Hulme.
  • Caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyrus. Family: Euphorbiaceae) : Corangil tablets.
  • Caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyrus. Family: Euphorbiaceae) : Corangil tablets.
  • Vetchling (Lathyrus inconspicuus): flowering and fruiting stem with separate fruit and seed. Coloured engraving after F. von Scheidl, 1770.
  • Tangier pea (Lathyrus tingitanus L.): flowering and fruiting stem with separate mature fruit and seed. Coloured engraving after F. von Scheidl, 1770.
  • Bird's foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and common vetch (Lathyrus pratensis): entire flowering plants. Coloured etching by A. Duménil, c. 1865, after P. Naudin.
  • Lathyrus vernus (L.)Bernh. Papilionaceae previously Orobus vernus L. (Linnaeus, 1753) Spring vetchling. Distribution: Europe to Siberia. The seeds of several Lathyrus species are toxic, and when eaten cause a condition called lathyrism. The chemical diaminoproprionic acid in the seeds causes paralysis, spinal cord damage, aortic aneurysm, due to poisoning of mitochondria causing cell death. Occurs where food crops are contaminated by Lathyrus plants or where it is eaten as a 'famine food' when no other food is available. It is the Orobus sylvaticus purpureus vernus of Bauhin (1671) and Orobus sylvaticus angustifolius of Parkinson (1640) - who records that country folk had no uses for it. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
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