FUMITORY FAMILY 3 1 



walls, with many short stems, no tendrils, and bright yellow 

 flowers. 



2. Fumaria (Fumitory). — Annual herbs differing little from 

 Corydalis except in having only two ovules in the ovary, only one 

 of which forms a seed in the indehiscent fruit. (Name from the 

 Latin fumus terra, smoke of the earth, these smoke-like glaucous 

 weeds being supposed to spring without seed from the vapours of 

 the ground.) 



i. F capreoldta (Ramping Fumitory). — Generally climbing by 

 means of its twisted leaf-stalks, i — 2 feet high ; flowers pale 

 pink or cream-coloured, tipped with crimson in short, few- 

 flowered racemes ; sepals as broad as the corolla and half as 

 long; fruit globose, slightly compressed, smooth; fruit-stalks 

 recurved. — Borders of fields ; common. — Fl. May — September. 

 Annual. 



Allied species are F. purpurea, with smaller flowers and 

 slightly recurved fruit-stalks ; F. occidentdlis, the largest British 

 species, known only from West Cornwall; F. Bastdrdi, with 

 large flowers and erect fruit-stalks ; and F. murdlis, with smaller 

 flowers and fruit, the latter obovate. 



2. F. officindlis (Common Fumitory). — Erect, smaller than F. 

 capreoldta ; leaves more divided ; flowers smaller, rose-coloured, 

 tipped with crimson, in long, many-flowered racemes ; sepals 

 narrower than the corolla ; fruit obovate, notched. — Fl. May — 

 September. Annual. 



* F. densiflora, a weaker plant with short racemes, elongating 

 after flowering, and roundish sepals, broader than the corolla ; 

 F. parviflbra, with small pale flowers in dense racemes, with 

 minute sepals ; and F. Vailldntii, with lax racemes, are less 

 common species. 



Ord. VI. CRuefFER^E. — The Cabbage Family 



A very large, very natural, and very important Order, well 

 described by the name Cruciferce, or cross-bearing, there being 

 invariably 4 petals, which are placed crosswise. They are mostly 

 herbs with a watery juice and pungent taste. The leaves are 

 radical and cauline, the former in a rosette ; the latter scattered 

 and exstipulate. The flowers are in an ebracteate raceme. There 

 are 4 sepals, the two lateral ones often pouched at the base ; 

 4 petals, placed diagonally ; and 6 stamens, in 2 whorls, the two 

 outer, opposite the lateral (pouched) sepals, shorter, the 4 inner 

 longer, whence Linnaeus classed all the members of this Order in 

 his class Tetradyndmia (see p. xxix). There are usually 4 honey- 



