SPECIES DESCRIPTION
FUMARIA OFFICINALIS
Family and Genus:- See- FUMARIACEAE
Common Names:- Common fumitory
Homotypic Synonyms:- None
Meaning:- Fumaria (L) Smoke.
Officinalis (L) Official medicine, of the apothacaries.
General description:- Weak, bluish-green, scrambling or spreading annual.
Stems:-
1) Diffuse to erect, often much branched from the base.
Leaves:-
1) Ultimate leaf lobes small, densely set, oblong.
Flowers:-
1) Racemes, subsessile or short-pedunculate, 10-40-flowered, rather dense.
2) Bracts, half as long as to equalling the straight, patent, rigid fruiting pedicels.
3) Sepals, 2.5-3 x c. 1.5 mm, dentate.
4) Corolla, 7-9 mm, pink, with inner petals and wings of upper petal tipped dark
purple. lower petal with a patent margin, spathulate.
Fruit:-
1) c. 2 x 2·5-3 mm, more or less obreniform, obscurely keeled, rugose, when dry;
apex truncate or slightly emarginate.
Key features:-
1) Sepals, 2·5-3·5 x 1-1·5 mm., more than 1/4 and often more than 1/3 as long as
the corolla.
2) Corolla, 7-9 mm.
3) Fruit, 2 x 2·5-3 mm, wider than long, apical pits without black spots.
4) Raceme, longer than the peduncle.
5) Upper petal obtuse.
Habitat:- Cultivated and fallow fields, olive groves, road embankments and ruderal
habitats. 0-800(-1200) m.
Distribution:- Widespread and common throughout the Mediterranean. Widespread
and common on Crete.
Flowering time:- Mar to mid-June.
Photos by:- Steve Lenton
