102 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
fmutter, fumitory 
(1) Crown’d with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds. 
King Lear, iv. 4, 3. ( See Cuckoo-flowers.) 
(2) Her fallow leas 
The Darnel, Hemlock, and rank Fumitory 
Doth root upon.— Henry V, v. 2, 44. 
Of Fumitories we have five species in England, all of them 
weeds in cultivated grounds and in hedgerows. None of them 
can be considered garden plants, 
but they are closely allied to the 
Corydalis , of which there are 
several pretty species, and to the 
very handsome Dicentras , of 
which one species— D. spectcibilis 
—ranks among the very hand¬ 
somest of our hardy herbaceous 
plants. How the plant acquired 
its name of Fumitory —fume-terre, 
earth-smoke—is not very satis¬ 
factorily explained, though many 
explanations have been given; 
but that the name was an ancient 
one we know from the interesting 
Stockholm manuscript of the eleventh century published by 
Mr. J. Pettigrew, and of which a few lines are w T orth quoting. 
(The poem is published in the “ Archseologia,” vol. xxx.)—■ 
“ Fumiter is erbe, I say, 
Yt spryngyth I April et in May, 
In feld, in town, in yard, et gate, 
Yer lond is fat and good in state,, 
Dun red is his flour 
Ye erbe smek lik in colowur.” 
