42 VII. Pj^AVERACE^. 



3. *FUMARIA, Linn. 



(From the smoky odour of the plants). 



Sepals 2, small. Petals 4, erect or conniving ; 2 outer ones dissimilar, anterior 

 flat or concave, posterior gibbous or spurred at the base ; 2 inner clawed, tips 

 free or cohering, keeled. Stamens 6, diadelphous ; posterior bundle with a basal 

 spur enclosed in the petal-spur ; mid-anther of each bundle 2-celled, lateral 

 6-celled. Ovary 1 -celled ; style filiform, stigma entire or shortly lobed ; ovules 

 2, on 2 placentas. Fruit indehiscent, globose, 1-seeded. — Annual, rarely peren- 

 nial herbs, usually branched, often scandent. Leaves much divided, segments 

 very narrow. Flowers small, white, rose-coloured, or purplish, in terminal or 

 leaf-opposed racemes. Generally to be met with as weeds in cultivation plots of 

 the temperate regions of the old world. 



1. r. parviflora (small-flowered), ' Lawi. The common small-flowered 

 fumitory. Plant diffused, pale-green, much branched. Leaves with flat seg- 

 ments. Racemes 1 to 2in. long, flowers white or rose-coloured, with purple 

 tips, J to ^in.; sepals lanceolate, much smaller than the corolla-tube, pedicels 

 exceeding the bracts. Fruit globose, rugose, dry, rounded at the top, with 2 pits. 



This and some other species are met with as weeds of cultivation. 



Order VIII. CRUCIFERiE. 



Flowers hermaphrodite, regular, or with the outer petals larger. Sepals i, 

 free, imbricate in 2 series, the outer ones often saccate at the base. Petals 4, 

 rarely wanting, the laminse spreading in the form of a cross ; torus usually 

 bearing 4 glands opposite the sepals. Stamens usually 6, of which 2 outer ones 

 shorter or rarely wanting, 4 inner ones longer, in pairs alternating with the outer 

 ones.' Anthers 2-celled, attached by the base. Ovary 1- called, with two parietal 

 placentas or rarely a single one, or more frequently divided into two cells by a 

 thin membranous septum connecting the two parietal placentas. Style simple, 

 often very short or none ; stigmas 2, erect, or divaricate, or united into a single 

 capitate or minute stigma. Ovules 1, 2, or more in each cell, horizontal or 

 pendulous from the parietal placenta. Fruit a pod, either long and narrow, and 

 then called a siliqua, or short and broad, called a silicule, usually 2-celled, each 

 cell opening by a deciduous valve, leaving persistent the thin septum surrounded 

 by the nerve-like placentas, which form a rim called the replum ; exceptionally 

 the pod is 1-seeded and indehiscent, or separating into 2 indehiscent cocci or into 

 2 or more bead-like articles. Seeds attached in each cell in 2 rows, one pro- 

 ceeding from each edge of the septum, but when each seed is as broad as the cell 

 they overlap each other, so as to appear to be and to be described as in a single 

 row; testa cellular, sometimes winged, often exuding when soaked a thick 

 coat of mucilage. Albumen usually none. Embryo usually curved, the coty- 

 ledons plano-convex with the radicle curved against their edge, when they are 

 said to be accumbent, or over the back of one of them, when they are incumbent : 

 in the latter case they are either flat or more or less folded over the radicle, or 

 conduplicate. — Herbs or rarely undershrubs, without milky juice. Hairs simple, 

 stellate or attached by the centre. Leaves simple, usually alternate, entire, 

 lobed or pinnately divided, the radical ones often lyrate and the stem ones 

 aurieled. Stipules none. Flowers usually in terminal racemes, which are at 

 first corymbose but lengthen out as the fruiting advances, and usually without 

 bracts. 



Oruciferai form a very large Order, dispersed over nearly the whole globe, but most abundant 

 in the temperate and cold regions of the northern hemisphere. Ttey are rare within the tropics, 



