Flora of North America species comparison

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Fumaria officinalis

common fumatory, common fumitory, drug fumitory, fumeterre officinal, fumitory
Habit Plants 1-7 dm.
Inflorescences

, excluding peduncle, 3-7 cm;

bracteoles 1/2 to nearly as long as pedicels.
Flowers

pedicel straight and ascending in fruit, ca. 3 mm;

corolla 6-9.5 mm, spur ca. 2.5 mm;

petals purplish pink or white near base, deep reddish purple to maroon apically.
Capsules

subglobose, sometimes slightly depressed, 1.5-2 mm diam., ± warty or pebbled.
2n

= 32, 48.

Fumaria officinalis
Phenology Flowering spring.
Habitat Waste places, cultivated or fallow fields, thin woods, ditches, roadsides
Elevation 0-2100 m (0-6900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; CA; CO; CT; DC; FL; GA; ID; IL; IN; KS; LA; MA; ME; MI; MN; MO; MT; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OR; PA; SC; TX; UT; VA; VT; WV; WY; AB; BC; MB; NB; NF; NS; ON; PE; QC; SK; St Pierre et Miquelon; Europe; n Africa [Introduced, scattered localities]
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Some plants in North America have conspicuously warty capsules with persistent styles. Similar plants in Europe were treated by M. Lidén (1986) as Fumaria officinalis subsp. wirtgenii (Koch) P. D. Sell. In all other characters, those plants are not significantly different from other members of the species, and they are not distinguished formally in this treatment.

Weaker, somewhat scandent plants with smaller, perhaps cleistogamous, white flowers and smaller fruits seem to be correlated with shaded situations. They are otherwise indistinguishable from other members of the species.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 3.
Parent taxa Fumariaceae > Fumaria
Sibling taxa
F. capreolata, F. vaillantii
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 700. (1753)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

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