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Common Fumitory

Common Fumitory

Fumaria officinalis

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How common: Common

Alien species

Common Fumitory is a delicate, branching annual of fields and gardens with airy, bluish‑green, finely divided leaves. It carries small pink flowers with a dark tip in short clusters. You’ll often see it in disturbed, sometimes damp places. Warning: poisonous.

Did you know?

  • The flowers have a tiny pouch at the base that hides nectar for insects.
  • It often turns up as a weed in vegetable plots and garden beds.

About the species

Identification

Slender, branching annual, usually 20–30 cm tall, often leaning through other plants. Stems smooth. Leaves are pale bluish‑green and finely divided into many narrow segments. Flowers grow in short clusters of around 20 near the ends of the shoots. Each flower is small (about 7–9 mm), pale pink to pinkish‑purple with a darker tip, and has a short pouch at the back. Later it makes tiny, hard, round, rough single seeds that turn brown. Can be confused with other fumitories; this kind often has larger, darker‑tipped flowers and bluish leaves. Flowers in Finland in late summer (July–August).

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

yards and roadsides

Toxicity

A poisonous plant – do not taste it. Source: HUS Poison Information Centre (Finland), tel. 0800 147 111.

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Grows on nutrient‑rich, disturbed ground: gardens, vegetable and root fields, and sometimes cereal fields. Also on damp edges like ditches, puddles and shores, as well as waste places, lawns, plantings and wet pastures. Favors moist, open spots. A long‑established introduction; common in southern and central Finland.

Sources

Photo: Terry Instone, CC BY 4.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/5938360086

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki leviäimet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37971

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki versot, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37971

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37971

Text: Pinkka: BIO-513 Syventävä putkilokasvituntemus - Epipactis-Hieracium, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37971

Text: Pinkka: Pieni maatalouslajintuntemus - Puuvartiset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37971

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltoem%C3%A4kki

See also