VETCHES, or Fitches, Vicia; a Plant that creeps close to the Ground, and has several Stalks, which entangle one in another, and put out small, narrow, longish Leaves; less than those of a Lentil. Its Flower is small, reddish, and sometimes white. Its Pods are like those of Pease, but that they are shorter and slenderer. The Grain they enclose is round and blackish, and they are used for feeding Pigeons, who are very greedy of them.
Isaiah xxviii. 25. speaks of Fitches. Doth he not cast abroad the Fitches? The Hebrew has Cusmeth,1 which some translate by Spelta, others by Zea, a kind of Wheat. Ezek. iv. 9. uses the same Word, and the Seventy render it by Olyra, a kind of Wheat. We have given Notice, more than once, that we can have no certainty in what relates to the Plants mentioned in Scripture.
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