THE WHITE CLIMBING FUMITORY— continued. 
found in a more or less naturalised state. While these two, and most of the other 
species, are perennials with underground tubers, C. claviculata is an annual with a 
slender branched tap-root. It grows in copses and other bushy and shady places, 
especially in hilly districts, in gravelly, stony, or sandy soil, preferably where humus 
is present, and its most marked character is the clambering of its slender delicate 
stem, which reaches a length of three or four feet, over other plants. 
Darwin describes the process in detail in his “ Movements and Habits of 
Climbing Plants.” When the plant is quite young, the first-formed leaves are not 
modified in any way, but those next formed have their terminal leaflets reduced. 
The primary branching of the leaf is pinnate, all the leaflets being long-stalked. 
The lower leaflets are ternate or quinate with small ovate-oblong segments, glaucous, 
or paler on the under surfaces. Towards the apex of the leaf the leaflets are much 
reduced, being only a tenth of an inch long, or even less, and very narrow ; and 
every gradation can be traced until we come to branchlets which show no vestige of 
a blade. These reduced leaflets are highly sensitive, curving under the smallest 
pressure ; and the whole leaf stands at first almost vertical and is in continual 
movement, revolving in about two hours. This plant is thus exactly intermediate 
between a leaf-climber and a tendril-bearer. It is to these tendrils, which are not 
present in other species of the genus, that the plant owes its name claviculata, from 
the Latin clavkula, a tendril. 
The flowers are pale straw-colour or nearly white, and are borne in short 
crowded racemes which are given off from the stem opposite to the leaves. Each 
flower is but a quarter of an inch long and is on a very short stalk, hardly as long as 
the little pointed bract. One of the outer pair of petals has a very short rounded 
spur or pouch at its base, which holds honey secreted by a glandular nectary at the 
base of the filament of the central stamen on that side of the flower. By a twisting 
of the flower-stalk the pouched petal is brought into a position to cover the rest of 
the flower. The inner petals, united at their tips, enclose the anthers and stigma ; 
but bees alighting upon them press down these two petals and cause the essential 
organs to emerge. In another species of the genus self-pollination is said to be 
physiologically impossible, the pollen acting like a poison if placed on the stigma of 
its own flower. The pod is lanceolate and acute, and shows constrictions externally 
between the three or four seeds which it contains. These are black and lustrous, 
though their surface is minutely pitted. , 
Though by no means uncommon and a somewhat strikingly graceful little 
plant, this our only indigenous species of Corydalis seems never to have obtained 
any genuine popular name. Climbing Fumitory^ a mere book-name, is used by Ray. 
