60 THE GENUS FUMARIA IN BRITAIN 



9. FuMARiA PARVIFLORA Lamarck. 



The name of F. parviflora was first published in Lamarck's 

 Encyclopedie Methodique, ii. p. 567 (1788), to represent a fumitory, 

 grown in the Jardin du Eoi at Paris, which the author beheved 

 to have originated in the South of France. The description 

 emphasizes the features, "F. silicuHs globosis . . . fohis tenuissime 

 divisis . . . floribus albis," and quotes Vaillant, Paris, tab. 10, fig. 5, 

 in illustration, the WTiter adding, " Ses fleurs sont beaucoup plus 

 petites que celles de F. officinalis . . . ses tiges sont . . . glauques 

 . . . diffuses . . . s'accrochant a toutes les plantes qui sont pres 

 d'elles, autour desquelles elles entortillent les petioles de leurs 

 feuilles . . . Les fleurs sont d'un blanc, mele d'un peu de vert et 

 tache d'un pourpre fonce ... a leur mufle . . . sur des epis fort 

 petits . . . laches . . ." 



The determination of the plant intended was rendered easy by 

 this clear description, and eleven years later it was identified as 

 British in English Botany, 590, where the figure and description 

 are taken from a specimen (collected in 1792 by Jacob Payer in 

 cornfields near Eochester) which is in the British Museum Herb. 

 The fruit of this specimen of Payer's, how^ever, is not globose, 

 as in Lamarck's description, but somewhat pointed and ogivale 

 in profile, and this is depicted in Sow^erby's plate as markedly 

 acuminate. 



In 1824 F. parviflora was redescribed in Viviani's Fl. Corsicae 

 Spec. Nov. Diagn, p. 12, as F. leucantha, the author stating that 

 his plant was the same as that of Lamarck, wdth " flores constanter 

 albi," but not that of Smith's Bng. Bot. 590, from which it differed 

 " siliqua neque acumine aucta, neque emarginata." 



Lamarck's species w^as subsequently recognized by Handschuch, 

 who considered the fruit " acutiuscule," and by Parlatore, who 

 thought it acuminate, and, rather strangely, smooth. In Peichen- 

 bach's Icones it is drawn with subgiobose but distinctly pointed 

 fruits and abnormally large sepals. It also appears, with similar 

 features, in Koch's Synopsis, ed. 2, and in Grenier & Godron's 

 Fl. de France, F. leucantha being mentioned in the latter work as 

 differing by its lack of apiculus to the fruit. 



Another plant allied to F. parviflora was published in 1852 by 

 Jordan {Pugillus, p. 8) as a new species, F. glauca, w^hich, after a 

 detailed diagnosis, is distinguished thus : — "A simillima F. parvi- 

 flora Lam. {leucantha Viv.) foliis glaucis circumscriptione lati- 

 oribus, lobis eorum duplo brevioribus et crassioribus canaliculatis 

 aliisque notis differt." 



In Hammar's Monograph both F. leucantha and F. glauca are 

 reduced to synonyms of the species F. parviflora Lam., of which 

 one variety only is admitted, /5 segetalis, founded on a purplish- 

 flowered plant, with unusually large sepals, received from Granada, 

 in Spain. The description of the type agrees essentially with 

 that of Lamarck but is more precise ; and the fruits are diagnosed 

 as " ovato-subrotundis acuminatis tuberculato-rugulosis," and 

 figured as subrotund and shortly pointed. 



Haussknecht, in dealing with these plants, maintains Lamarck's 



