PAPAVERACE. Natal 
deeply cut; segments flat, elliptical or oblong-elliptical, rarely 
linear-elliptical. Racemes about 1 to 1} inch long when in flower, 
elongated to nearly double this length in fruit, stalked, opposite the 
leaves. Flowers + to 2 inch long, including the spur, which is 
searcely one-third the length of the upper petal, and blunt. Sepals 
ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, slightly produced backwards behind 
the point of attachment, toothed, one-half to one-third as broad as 
the corolla tube, membranous, rose-colour. Petals dark or pale 
purplish rose-colour, tipped with dark purple; the lower petal 
spatulate. Pedicels of the fruit invariably longer than the coloured 
bracts, enlarged at the apex. Fruit about jy inch long by 45 
broad. Plant dull green, glaucous. 
The narrow sepals-and the truncate or retuse fruit much broader 
than long, sufficiently distinguish this species from both the pre- 
ceding; and the lower petal with an abrupt enlargement at the tip 
is a further mark by which its luxuriant climbing forms may be 
distinguished from F. capreolata. I have had what seems to me to 
be a small-flowered specimen of this plant sent me under the name 
of F. Wirtgeni (Koch) by Dr. Wirtgen, and I have cultivated speci- 
mens raised from seeds sent to Mr. Hewett C. Watson, under the 
same name, which belong to F. Boreei. Koch, however, describes 
his plant as having the flowers of F. officinalis and the fruit of 
F. Vaillantii. EF. media (Loisel) appears to be only a state of 
F. officinalis. 
Common Fumitory, Common Earth-Smoke. 
French, Fumeterre Officinale. German, Der Gemeine Erdrauch, Taubenkropp. 
In Kent this is often called Wax Dolls, from the doll-like appearance of the 
little flowers. 
This plant is found more or less wherever corn is cultivated. Though a perse- 
vering and troublesome weed, it is one the appearance of which every farmer may 
regard as an indication of good, deep, and rich land,—a circumstance not unnoticed by 
England’s greatest poet, when speaking of the rich but unproductive soil of France, 
laid bare and left uncultivated by the horrors of war. He makes the Duke of Burgundy, 
in the play of “ King Henry V.,” to say,— 
“ Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace, 
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, 
Should not, in this best garden of the world, 
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage ? 
Alas! she hath from Fraice too long been chased, 
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps, 
Corrupting in its own fertility. 
Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, 
Unpruned dies ; her hedges even-pleach’d, 
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, 
Put forth disorder’d twigs ; her fallow leas 
The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory, 
Doth root upon.” 
