SPECIES DESCRIPTION
FUMARIA CAPREOLATA
Family and Genus:- See- FUMARIACEAE
Common Names:- Ramping fumitory
Homotypic Synonyms:- Fumaria officinalis var. capreolata.
Meaning:- Fumaria (L) Smoke.
Capreolata (L) Sprawling between supports, twining, winding,
tendrilled.
General description:- Short to tall spreading and scrambling annual.
Stems:-
1) 30-100(-200) cm.
Leaves:-
1) Ultimate lobes narrowly obovate. pale or greyish green.
Flowers:-
1) Racemes, 10-25-flowered, equalling peduncle.
2) Bracts, shorter than or equalling the strongly recurved fruiting pedicels.
3) Sepals, 4-6 x 2.5-4 mm, subentire to dentate, scarious and whitish.
4) Corolla, 11-13 mm, white, occasionally flushed red or pink after fertilization; tips
of inner petals and wings of upper petal blotched dark purple.
Fruit:-
1) 2-2.25 mm, globose or squarish, obtuse or truncate, ± smooth.
Key features:-
1) Peduncle, equalling the raceme.
2) Flowers, 11-14 mm.
3) Leaflets, more than 1.5 mm broad
Habitat:- Coastal wasteground, hedges, olive groves, scrub at the bases of cliffs,
etc. 0-600 m.
Distribution:- One of the commonest fumitories in the Mediterranean region,
though fairly rare on Crete, mainly confined to the west.
Flowering time:- Late Mar to mid-May.
Photos by:- Fotis Samaritakis
