An annual herb, 15-30 cm (6-12 in) tall, with trailing stems, small, finely divided grey-green leaves and racemes of tubular, pink flowers, in midsummer to autumn.<\/p>\n
Shakespeare had no high opinion of this plant, referring to it twice as \u201crank fumitory\u201d it was one of the \u201cidle weeds\u201d with which King Lear crowned himself when mad, and a plant which grew in \u201cfallow leas\u201d, left uncultivated because of war (Henry V). Fumaria is from the Latin for smoke, fumus. Various explanations have been put forward for its application to this plant from the leaves having a \u201csmoky appearance\u201d to smoke from the plant when burnt, dispatching evil spirits; or the view, attributed to Pliny, that putting the juice in the eyes makes the tears run to such an extent that it\u2019s like being blinded by smoke.<\/p>\n
A wild plant, it will grow in any light soil, in sun or shade. Propagated from seed sown in spring, it also self-seeds readily.<\/p>\n
Contains small amounts of similar alkaloids to those found in poppies. Formerly used internally for digestive complaints and externally for eczema, skin disorders and conjunctivitis, but is little used today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An annual herb, 15-30 cm (6-12 in) tall, with trailing stems, small, finely divided grey-green leaves and racemes of tubular, pink flowers, in midsummer to autumn. History and traditions Shakespeare had no high opinion of this plant, referring to it twice as \u201crank fumitory\u201d it was one of the \u201cidle weeds\u201d with which King Lear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,109,111,85,154,107,102,157,97,105,110,98,124,103,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-z","category-acidic-soil","category-alkaline-soil","category-annual","category-annuals","category-chalky-soil","category-clay-soil","category-flowering","category-full","category-loamy-soil","category-neutral-soil","category-partial","category-pink","category-sandy-soil","category-summer"],"meta_box":{"botanical-name":"Fumaria officinalis","common-names":"Common fumitory, Wax dolls, Drug fumitory, Fumaria cirrhata, Fumaria diffusa, Fumaria disjuncta, Fumaria pulchella, Earth smoke","family":"Papaveraceae","flower_bloom_time":[{"term_id":114,"name":"Summer","slug":"summer","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":114,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":112,"count":163,"filter":"raw"}],"flower_color":[{"term_id":124,"name":"Pink","slug":"pink","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":124,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":116,"count":54,"filter":"raw"}],"plant_life_cycle":[{"term_id":85,"name":"Annual","slug":"annual","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":85,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":84,"count":44,"filter":"raw"}],"plant_types":[{"term_id":154,"name":"Annuals","slug":"annuals","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":154,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":88,"count":10,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":157,"name":"Flowering","slug":"flowering","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":157,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":88,"count":6,"filter":"raw"}],"soil_ph":[{"term_id":109,"name":"Acidic Soil","slug":"acidic-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":109,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":108,"count":148,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":111,"name":"Alkaline Soil","slug":"alkaline-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":111,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":108,"count":117,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":110,"name":"Neutral Soil","slug":"neutral-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":110,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":108,"count":158,"filter":"raw"}],"soil_type":[{"term_id":107,"name":"Chalky Soil","slug":"chalky-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":107,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":101,"count":31,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":102,"name":"Clay Soil","slug":"clay-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":102,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":101,"count":108,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":105,"name":"Loamy Soil","slug":"loamy-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":105,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":101,"count":179,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":103,"name":"Sandy Soil","slug":"sandy-soil","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":103,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":101,"count":147,"filter":"raw"}],"sun_exposure":[{"term_id":97,"name":"Full","slug":"full","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":97,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":96,"count":197,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":99,"name":"Shade","slug":"shade","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":99,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":96,"count":6,"filter":"raw"}],"usda_hardiness_zones":"Zone: 6 - 9","region_or_country_of_origin":"Europe, British Isles, Central Asia, and the Himalayas","plant_mature_size":"
Height<\/strong>: 30 to 70 cm tall<\/p>\n"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeflowerbulbs.com\/plants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}