Sophora viciifolia Seeds | Vetch-leaf Sophora
LATIN NAME: Sophora viciifolia
COMMON NAME: Vetch-Leaf Sophora
Plant Profile
Sophora viciifolia is a shrub of dry hillsides in western China, with fine pinnate leaves that look like a vetch and short spikes of pale yellow flowers in early summer. It grows to about two metres, with stiff, upright stems and a dense habit, and it makes a thornless hedge that withstands grazing and drought. The pods are small and constricted between the seeds.
The species grows on dry, stony slopes in Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan, often where the soil is thin and the rainfall is under 500 millimetres. It is one of several shrubby sophoras used in the loess plateau for revegetation, since it establishes on bare ground and holds the surface while slower plants come in. The bark is grey-brown and shreds in strips, and the young stems are angular and green.
Science & Biotechnology
Like its relatives, the plant contains quinolizidine alkaloids, chiefly matrine and oxymatrine, and the seed is the most toxic part. The alkaloids make the foliage unpalatable to livestock for most of the year, which is part of why the shrub survives heavy grazing, and they are the reason it has a place in local medicine.
The shrub is also a nitrogen fixer. It nodulates with rhizobia and improves the soil beneath it, which is why it is used in mixtures on degraded land: the sophora holds the surface and adds nitrogen, and the grasses and trees that follow benefit. The root system is deep and widely spreading, which is what makes it useful on a slope.
Uses & Benefits
The plant is used in revegetation and as a living fence, and it is cut for fuel in districts where little else grows. The seed is collected for medicine, and the root is used in local practice for fever and for skin complaints, usually as a decoction.
The foliage is browsed by goats in winter, when the alkaloid content is lower, and the plant is cut and dried for fodder in some districts. It is not a commercial crop, and the seed should not be eaten by people or fed to pigs, since the alkaloids are toxic at low doses.
Growing from Seed
Scarify the seed with hot water and sow in spring at 20 degrees. Germination is in two to four weeks, and the seedling is fast enough to plant out in its first year. The plant can also be raised from cuttings of half-ripe wood in summer.
The plant wants full sun, sharp drainage and a lean soil, and it tolerates drought, wind and cold to about minus twenty. It is a good shrub for a dry bank or a windbreak, and it responds to cutting by producing dense regrowth. Do not enrich the soil, which produces soft growth and few flowers.
Our Take
A hard-working shrub for dry, degraded ground, useful as a hedge and as a nurse crop, and not a plant to eat.
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