LXXXVIII THE WHITE CLIMBING FUMITORY. 
LTHOUGH sometimes treated as merely a Sub-Family of Papaveracere, 
Fumariaceie have markedly distinctive characters. They are herbaceous and 
include both annual and perennial species ; but their juice is watery and not the 
thick, milky latex of the Poppies. Their leaves are scattered, usually much divided, 
and in many cases serve as climbing organs. Their flowers are seldom large, are 
grouped in racemes, and are monosymmetric or disymmetric. The number of 
leaves in their perianths is the same as in the Poppies ; but their positions are 
different, the two caducous sepals being in the median plane or front and back, 
whilst in Poppies they are lateral, and the two outer petals in the Fumitories being 
similarly lateral, whilst those of Poppies are antero-posterior. One or both of these 
lateral petals in Fumitories has a spur or pouch, whilst the very different inner pair 
cohere by their tips so as to enclose the anthers and stigma. There are apparently 
in all Fumariace<e four stamens only ; but in most cases they are remarkably united 
by their filaments into two groups, each consisting of one perfect lateral stamen with 
a two-chambered anther and two halves of the antero-posterior pair, each bearing a 
one-chambered or dimidiate anther. These stamens have often been described as six 
diadelphous ones, and, according to another modern interpretation, the lateral 
ciimidiate anthers are truly parts of the central stamens in each group, whilst the 
inner pair of stamens, which I suppose them to represent, is suppressed. The 
superior ovary consists of two carpels united, but is one-chambered and may contain 
one or several, but not many, seeds, which, like those of the Poppies, are albuminous 
and have minute embryos at their bases. 
The Family, or Sub-Family, comprises about a hundred and fifty species in ten 
genera, mostly natives of the Temperate portions of the Northern Flemisphere, 
especially the Mediterranean region and North America. None has been recorded 
from the Tropics. 
The genus Corydalis was established by Ventenat in 1803; but the name 
(derived from /copuSaWo?, korudallos^ a lark, from the resemblance of the blossoms 
to a lark’s spur) is quoted by Dodoens from Galen. Pliny called it Pes gallinaceus, 
which Flenry Lyte rendered literally as Hens foot; whilst the modern German 
Lerchensporn is a direct rendering of the Greek name. It was named Capnos by 
some of the. early botanists, and Capnoides by Philip Miller, from Kairvo';, kapnos, 
smoke, by analogy with the name Fumitory^ which is from the Latin ; and it 
has also been known as Neckeria. It is mainly distinguished from Fumaria by its 
fruit, which is a capsule containing several seeds and dehiscing into two valves. 
Of some ninety species, mostly natives of the Himalayan and Mediterranean 
regions, only one, Corydalis claviculata De Candolle, is wild in Britain, though two 
others, C. lutea Gaertner and C. solida Moench, both showy garden plants, are often 
Corydalis claviculata De Candolle. 
