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Fumaria officinalis

Common name:	Fumitory	Family:	Fumariaceae
Author:	L.	Botanical references:	17
Synonyms:
Known Hazards:	None known
Range:	Most of Europe, including Britain, to the Mediterranean and east to Iran.
Habitat:	Arable land and as a weed in gardens, usually on lighter soils[9, 17]. It is also found growing on old walls[244].
Edibility Rating (1-5):	1	Medicinal Rating (1-5):	3

Other Possible Synonyms:	From various places across the web, may not be correct. See below.
	F. officinale[HORTIPLEX] F. officinalis auct. non[P] F. vaillantii[B,E,L,P]
Other Common Names:	From various places around the Web, may not be correct. See below.
	Common Fumitory [L], Drug Fumitory [P,B], Earthsmoke [B,P], Few-flowered Fumitory [L], Fumaria [E], Fumitory [H,S,E], Gewone Duivenkervel [D], Kohaheina [E], Sahtere [E], Shaterag [E], Tzu Hua Ti Ting [E],
Epithets:	From a Dictionary of Botanical Epithets
	officinalis = sold as an herb
Systematics:	From a USDA Plants Database
	Order: Papaverales. Fumitory family
Other Range Info:	From the Ethnobotany Database
	China Europe Finland France India Iran Iraq Spain Turkey

Physical Characteristics

Annual growing to 0.3m by 0.3m . It is hardy to zone 5 and is not frost tender. It is in flower from May to September, and the seeds ripen from July to October. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Bees and flies. The plant is self-fertile. We rate it 1/5 for edibility and 3/5 for medicinal use.

The plant prefers light (sandy) and medium (loamy) soils. The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It requires moist soil.

Habitats and Possible Locations

Cultivated Beds, Walls.

Edible Uses

Curdling agent.

The fresh or dried herb can be added to sour plant milks. A few sprays are added to each litre of liquid and left until the liquid has soured thickly. The sprays are then removed. It gives a tangy taste to the milk, acts as a preservative and prevents the rancid taste that can accompany soured milk[183].

Medicinal Uses

Disclaimer

Antispasmodic Aperient Cholagogue Diaphoretic Diuretic Laxative Tonic.

Fumitory has been highly valued since at least Roman times for its tonic and blood cleansing effect upon the body[244]. It is particularly valuable in the treatment of all visceral obstructions, particularly those of the liver, in scorbutic affections and in troublesome eruptive diseases of the skin, especially eczema (for which it can be taken internally and externally)[4, 9, 238].
The herb is antispasmodic, aperient, cholagogue, slightly diaphoretic, mildly diuretic, laxative and weakly tonic[4, 9, 21, 165, 240]. The plant is harvested as flowering begins in the summer and can be used fresh or can be dried for later use[9, 238]. Some caution should be exercised in the use of this herb since excess doses cause hypnotic and sedative effects, especially if it is taken for more than about 8 days[238, 244].

We have a more details factsheet on the history and medicinal use of this plant. Email webmaster@pfaf.org for details.

Other Uses

Baby care Dye.

A yellow dye is obtained from the flowers[4, 21].
A decoction makes a curative lotion for 'milk-crust' on the scalps of babies[4].

Cultivation details

Prefers a light well-drained soil in a sunny position[9, 17, 238].
This plant can be a common weed in some gardens, self-sowing freely, though it is fairly easy to control by hand weeding[K]. The flowers are seldom visited by insects, but they are self-fertile and usually set every seed[4].

Propagation

Seed - sow spring in situ. There is normally very little need to sow this seed, the plant normally self-sows freely and should manage quite nicely by itself.

Suppliers

For more details of plant suppliers please see our Suppliers Page which lists many more places to look.

Web References

Details of Medicinal Uses, Habitats, etc. in M. Grieve A Modern Herbal (1931) [4]
[H] Details of Scandanavian and European Common names in Henriette's names database
[L] Scientific and Common Names (some photos) from Lepidoptera and some other life forms
[E] Ethnobotany Data (common names, uses, countries) from the Ethnobotany Database.
[V] Images from the Vascular Plant Image Gallery of the Texas A& M Bioinformatics Working Group.
[B] Data (Latin & Common names, other references) from the BONAP's Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
[S] Image from the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine
[G] Data (Common Names, Uses, Distribution) from the USDA/ARS NPGS's GRIN taxonomic database.
[P] Data. (uses, distribution, wetland) from the USDA'a Plants database.

References for Fumaria officinale (a possible synonym).

[HP] Links, Photos, Suppliers from Hortiplex Plant Database

References for Fumaria vaillantii (a possible synonym).

[L] Scientific and Common Names (some photos) from Lepidoptera and some other life forms
[E] Ethnobotany Data (common names, uses, countries) from the Ethnobotany Database.
[B] Data (Latin & Common names, other references) from the BONAP's Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
[P] Data. (uses, distribution, wetland) from the USDA'a Plants database.

References for fumaria officinalis (a possible synonym).

[HP] PhotoFrom Henriette's plant pictures
[HP] PhotoFrom Henriette's plant pictures
[HP] PhotoFrom Henriette's plant pictures

See the PFAF Links Pages for other sources.

Also try Photos and info from the The Plants Database which has 14,000 images.

References

[K] Ken Fern
Notes from observations, tasting etc at Plants For A Future and on field trips.

[4] Grieve. A Modern Herbal. Penguin 1984 ISBN 0-14-046-440-9
Not so modern (1930's?) but lots of information, mainly temperate plants.

[9] Launert. E. Edible and Medicinal Plants. Hamlyn 1981 ISBN 0-600-37216-2
Covers plants in Europe. a drawing of each plant, quite a bit of interesting information.

[17] Clapham, Tootin and Warburg. Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press 1962
A very comprehensive flora, the standard reference book but it has no pictures.

[21] Lust. J. The Herb Book. Bantam books 1983 ISBN 0-553-23827-2
Lots of information tightly crammed into a fairly small book.

[165] Mills. S. Y. The Dictionary of Modern Herbalism.
An excellent small herbal.

[183] Facciola. S. Cornucopia - A Source Book of Edible Plants. Kampong Publications 1990 ISBN 0-9628087-0-9
Excellent. Contains a very wide range of conventional and unconventional food plants (including tropical) and where they can be obtained (mainly N. American nurseries but also research institutes and a lot of other nurseries from around the world.

[238] Bown. D. Encyclopaedia of Herbs and their Uses. Dorling Kindersley, London. 1995 ISBN 0-7513-020-31
A very well presented and informative book on herbs from around the globe. Plenty in it for both the casual reader and the serious student. Just one main quibble is the silly way of having two separate entries for each plant.

[240] Chopra. R. N., Nayar. S. L. and Chopra. I. C. Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants (Including the Supplement). Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi. 1986
Very terse details of medicinal uses of plants with a wide range of references and details of research into the plants chemistry. Not for the casual reader.

[244] Phillips. R. & Foy. N. Herbs Pan Books Ltd. London. 1990 ISBN 0-330-30725-8
Deals with all types of herbs including medicinal, culinary, scented and dye plants. Excellent photographs with quite good information on each plant.

Readers Comments

Plant Rennet

Rich (pfaf@scs.leeds.ac.uk) Sat Apr 15 16:59:27 2000

According to VegSoc, in the past, fig leaves, melon, wild thistle and safflower have all supplied plant rennets for cheese making.

agsieve also has information about another plant source, using the juice from the plant as a coagulant.

Cross references: Plants: Asclepias eriocarpa, Carduus nutans, Carthamnus tinctorius, Cirsium arvense, Cirsium vulgare, Cynara cardunculus, Cynara scolymus, Drosera rotundifolia, Ficus carica, Galega officinalis, Galium verum, Oxalis acetosella, Pinguicula vulgaris, Pyrularia edulis , Rhus chinensis, Rumex acetosa, Urtica dioica, Withania somnifera.

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Plant information taken from the Plants For A Future - Species Database. Copyright (c) 1997-2003.
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