Diffuse or erect (sometimes climbing) herbs, with finely dissected leaves, and small racemose flowers. Petals 4, erect-connivent, the outer pair larger, 1 of them spurred, the inner narrow, coherent at the apex, keeled or crested on the back. Stamens 6, diadelphous, opposite the outer petals. Ovule 1; style slender, deciduous; stigma entire or lobed. Fruit 1-seeded, nearly globose, indehiscent. Seeds not crested. [Name from the Latin, smoke, from the smoke-like smell of some species.]

About 40 species, all natives of the Old World, the following typical.

1. Fumaria Officinalis L. Fumitory. Hedge Fumitory

Fig. 1996

Fumaria officinalis L. Sp. Pl. 700. 1753.

Glabrous, stems diffuse or ascending, freely branching, 6'-3° long. Leaves petioled, finely dissected into entire or lobed linear oblong or cuneate segments; racemes axillary and terminal, 1-3' long, narrow; pedicels 1"-2" long, axillary to small bracts; flowers purplish, 2"-3" long, crimson at the summit; sepals acute, toothed; spur rounded, i" long; nut 1" in diameter, depressed-globose.

In waste places and on ballast, occasionally about towns and villages. Newfoundland to Florida and the Gulf States, and locally in the interior. Bermuda. Fugitive or adventive from Europe. Summer. Wax-dolls. Earth-smoke.

Fumaria parviflòra Lam., found on ballast about the seaports, may be distinguished by its still smaller paler flowers (2"), very narrow sharp and channeled leaf-segments, and its apiculate nut.