74 COMMON FUMITORY. 



"Whose red and purple mottled flowers 

 Are cropp'd by maids in weeding hours, 

 To boil in water, milk, and whey. 

 For w^ashes on a holiday, 

 To make their beauty fair and sleek, 

 And scare the tan from summer's cheek; 

 And oft the dame will feel inclined, 

 As childhood's memory comes to mind, 

 To turn her hook away, and spare 

 The blooms it loved to gather there." 



This plant is common by road-sides and in 

 cultivated fields and gardens, and is sometimes 

 so abundant in the corn-field of spring, as to 

 give a red hue to the land. It flowers during 

 the whole summer. 



We have, besides, two wild species of the 

 genus, the Ramping ^iimitov j {Fa?n aria capreo- 

 lata), which blooms from May to August, and 

 is frequent in gardens and corn-fields. It 

 is much like the common species^ but the 

 flowers are larger and the stems generally more 

 clunbing. The small-flowered Fumitory {¥u- 

 maria joarviflora) is a rare species, occasionally 

 found in fields during August and September. 

 The flowers are rose-coloured, and the leaves 

 have, instead of the pale green tint of the 

 other kinds, a bright verdant hue. 



,^,^ ^^^ ^y^ v* ^- M.^7 ^^^ ' - 



