Ramping-fumitory, Common

Information on Common Ramping Fumitory

Common Name: Common Ramping Fumitory
Scientific Name: Fumaria muralis
Irish Name: Camán searraigh balla
Family Group: Papaveraceae
Distribution: View Map (Courtesy of the BSBI)
Flowering Period


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Common Ramping Fumitory could sometimes be confused with:

Ramping-fumitory, White,

Fumaria is another genus in which is difficult to distinguish one species from another, so if I have identified this incorrectly, please don't hesitate to let me know.  Common Ramping Fumitory is an annual frequently found on arable land, and is also seen – by some - as a common garden weed.  It has tubular pink flowers which have their upper petals compressed and the lower petal with almost parallel sides which are slightly turned up. These flowers (9-11mm long) are pink with deep purple tips and bloom from April to October.  The leaves are floppy, straggly and weak and are pinnately divided and feathery.  This is not a native plant and it belongs to the family Papaveraceae.

My first record of this plant is in Ballitore, Co Kildare in 1977 and it was photographed in Gibletstown, Co Wexford in 2006.

If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre

Herbalist Nicholas Culpeper said of Fumitory that it 'helps such as are itchy and scabbed, clears the skin, opens stoppings of the liver and spleen, helps rickets, hypochondriac melancholy, madness, frenzies.'

Poet John Clare (1793-1864) wrote: 

'And Fumitory too, a name
Which superstition holds to fame,
Whose red and purple mottled flowers
Are dropped by maids in weeding hours,
To boil in water, milk, and whey,
For washes on a holiday,
To make their beauty fair and sleek,
And scare the tan from summer's cheek.'

Ramping-fumitory, Common
Ramping-fumitory, Common
Ramping-fumitory, Common
Ramping-fumitory, Common