YELLOW WALL FUMITORY 135 



or terraces, wallflowers on ruins of castles or old houses, on a mud-wall 

 top, and Rue-leaved Saxifrage, which also grows on mole-heaps, its 

 natural habitat. Then on thatched roofs there is Live-long, and as a 

 Chasmophyte rooted in crevices (but artificially introduced) Ivy-leaved 

 Toadflax, while other mural plants are Great Snapdragon, Field 

 Speedwell, Pellitory, especially on church towers, castles, and Flat- 

 stalked Poa on mud-walls. The luscious-rooted Rampion is fond of 

 gravel, while Silky Wind Grass and Sand Fescue love sandy fields. 



Yellow Wall Fumitory (Corydalis lutea, D.C.) 



No trace of this plant has occurred in ancient deposits. It is found 

 south of Belgium throughout Western Europe. The Yellow Fumitory 

 is found throughout England, Wales, and Scotland, where it is 

 naturalized, and without exception an escape from cultivation. Almost 

 entirely an escape from gardens it is likely to be found wherever it is 

 grown in or near gardens. Its actual distribution as a naturalized 

 plant has not been ascertained. 



This plant has a predilection for walls, and is usually grown with 

 other rock or mural plants in a garden or on the stone walls of a 

 glass-house, or at the foot of the wall of a house. But it flourishes 

 best, like the Ivy-leaved Toadflax, with which it grows, in old moated 

 enclosures, where the bricks have fallen into decay, and a suitable 

 substratum has thus been created for it. This is also the case with the 

 Wallflower, Stock, and other mural denizens. 



Unlike the Earth Smoke, Yellow Fumitory is a compact, many- 

 branched, spreading plant, whose stems are less tall, and clustered 

 together in a fastigiate manner, giving the plant, with its luxuriant 

 foliage and rather abundant flowers, an ornamental character lacking 

 in the latter. 



The yellow, rarely white, flowers are in racemes, with a leaf 

 opposite each, and the seeds are in 2-valved pods and numerous, while 

 the bracts are small, oblong, shorter than the flower-stalks, and the 

 seeds, which are granular, have a crest. The upper of the 4 petals 

 has a short, thick, incurved spur. The foliage is more like that of 

 an Adiantum, with inversely egg-shaped leaflets on long petioles. 

 The whole plant is less bluish-green than Earth Smoke, but equally 

 tender and brittle. The base of the stem and roots is yellow. 



The stem is not more than i ft. high. Flowers extend from May 

 to August. The plant is a deciduous, herbaceous perennial, increased 

 by division. 



