FUMITORY

fumitory, in botany, the popular name for the british species of _fumaria_, a genus of small, branched, often climbing annual herbs with much-divided leaves and racemes of small flowers. the flowers are tubular with a spurred base, and in the british species are pink to purplish in colour. they are weeds of cultivation growing in fields and waste places. _f. capreolata_ climbs by means of twisting petioles. in past times fumitory was in esteem for its reputed cholagogue and other medicinal properties; and in england, boiled in water, milk or whey, it was used as a cosmetic. the root of the allied species (_corydalis cava_ or _tuberosa_) is known as _radix aristolochia_, and has been used medicinally for various cutaneous and other disorders, in doses of 10 to 30 grains. some eleven alkaloids have been isolated from it. the herbage of _fumaria officinalis_ and _f. racemosa_ is used in china under the name of _tsze-hwa-ti-ting_ as an application for glandular swellings, carbuncles and abscesses, and was formerly valued in jaundice, and in cases of accidental swallowing of the beard of grain (see f. porter smith, _contrib. towards the mat. medica ... of china_, p. 99, 1871). the name fumitory, latin _fumus terrae_, has been supposed to be derived from the fact that its juice irritates the eyes like smoke (see fuchs, _de historia stirpium_, p. 338, 1542); but _the grete herball_, cap. clxix., 1529, fol., following the _de simplici medicina_ of platearius, fo. xciii. (see in _nicolai praepositi dispensatorium ad aromatarios_, 1536), says: "it is called fumus terre fume or smoke of the erthe bycause it is engendred of a cours fumosyte rysynge frome the erthe in grete quantyte lyke smoke: this grosse or cours fumosyte of the erthe wyndeth and wryeth out: and by workynge of the ayre and sonne it turneth into this herbe."