THE COMMON FUMITORY— continued. 
Pliny’s explanation of the name was not universally adopted. “ The Crete 
Herball ” of 1529, for instance, says : — 
“ It is called Fumus terrae, fume or smoke of the erthe bycause it is engendred of a cours fumosyte rysynge from the 
erthe in grete quantyte lyke smoke : this grosse or cours fumosyte of the erthe wyndeth and wryeth out : and by workynge of 
the ayre and sonne it turneth into this herbe,” 
After this, our graphic provincial names, Bloody-man s-thumb and Wax-dolls^ 
seem prosaic indeed. 
The genus Fumaria, to which all this lore attaches, is mainly distinguished from 
Corydalts by almost all its species being annuals and by having an indehiscent one- 
seeded fruit. According to Mr. Pugsley, its latest monographer, it comprises some 
forty-two species, all of which appear to be variable or polymorphic in their characters. 
Of these, ten species are British. The whole genus falls into two sections, viz. 
Grandiflor^e or Latisect^e and Parviflorte or Angustisectte. Of our first-recognised British 
forms, F. capreolata Linne belongs to the former, F. officinalis Linne to the latter. 
In the former section the leaf-segments are ovate, the flowers, if normal and not 
starved, are more than nine millimetres long, and the lower petal is not spathulate ; 
whereas in the latter the leaf-segments are linear, the flowers are less than nine 
millimetres long, and the lower petal is spathulate. Mr. Pugsley begins his detailed 
diagnosis of F. officinalis Linne by describing it as — 
“ A plant of more or less robust habit and often much branched ; in open fields either suberect and compact, or, generally 
later in the year, more or less diffuse 5 in bushy places and in shade often rampant and climbing by its cirrhose petioles. Leaves 
2-3-pinnatisect, usually somewhat glaucous, with leaflets cut, sometimes more or less divaricately, into flat, lanceolate or linear- 
oblong, acute or slightly mucronate lobes.*' 
To this he adds that the sepals are broad and dentate ; that the lower petal is 
abruptly dilated towards its apex ; and that the fruit is truncate, almost reversedly 
kidney-shaped, and wrinkled when ripe. 
Darwin gives an account of the method of climbing exhibited by this species 
which is typical of its writer in its minuteness of thorough observation. He is 
presumably thinking of the plant’s stature rather than of its grade of specialisation 
when he writes : — “It could not have been anticipated that so lowly a plant would 
have been a climber.” Those movements for which he suggested the name circum- 
nutation occur in the younger parts of the stem ; but the actual climbing is the work 
of the primary and secondary petioles. As in Clematis and other instances, those 
leaf-stalks that have clasped a support become thicker and more cylindrical. 
It has often been noticed that after the flower of Fumitories has been pollinated 
the dark red at the apex becomes diffused, or white-flowered varieties become pink. 
This has been somewhat speculatively described as a warning to insect-visitors that 
such flowers have already lost their honey. 
