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. It is included in the family Fumariaceae. 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 medicinal properties; and in England, boiled in water, milk or whey, it was used as a cosmetic. The root of the allied species (Corydalis tuberosa) is known as radix aristolochia, and has been used medicinally for various cutaneous and other dis orders, in doses of 10 to 3o grains. Some II alkaloids have been isolated from it. The herbage of Fumaria officinalis and F. racemosa is used in China as an application for glandular swell ings, carbuncles and abscesses, and was formerly valued in jaundice.
The climbing fumitory or Alleghany-vine (Adlumia fungosa), native to moist woods in the north-eastern United States, with delicate flowers and foliage, is cultivated as an ornamental vine.