Fumitory

Parts Usually Used

Flowering herb

Description of Plant(s) and Culture

Fumitory is an annual, slender, climbing plant; the sub-erect, hollow stem is angular, smooth, and bluish or smoky-green colored. The leaves are frail, alternate, gray-green, and bipinnate or tripinnate with small, narrow divisions. The small flowers vary from reddish-purple to yellowish-white, and have a reddish-black spot at the tip, grow in loose racemes from May to September.

Where Found

Grows practically everywhere on earth, mostly around areas where other plants are cultivated. Fumitory is native to Europe.

Medicinal Properties

Alterative, cholagogue, diuretic, laxative, stomachic, bitter tonic

Biochemical Information

Fumarine and other alkaloids, fumaric acid, bitter principles, resin, mucilage

Legends, Myths and Stories

According to the Webster’s Dictionary the classification of fumitory is of the fumitory family. But some references claim it belongs to the poppy family or Papaveraceae. Fumitory was mentioned by Pliny, the Roman writer (AD 23-79) and by Dioscorides, a Greek physician (first century AD). One of fumitory’s common German names once was scabweed.

Uses

Historically, herbalists utilized fumitory primarily as an internal remedy for liver, gallbladder, and stomach complaints, as well as for jaundice, nausea, and vomiting. It was widely regarded as a blood purifier and was employed in traditional practice as a laxative and diuretic, occasionally combined with other botanicals for chronic constipation. Traditional practitioners also administered it for various cutaneous conditions, including dermatitis, scabies, and general skin eruptions.

The seventeenth-century herbalist Nicholas Culpeper recorded that the plant clarified the blood from choleric humours associated with itches, scabs, and tetters, asserting that it strengthened the internal organs following purging. Culpeper further documented the external application of fumitory juice, often mixed with dock juice, which he believed addressed pimples, blotches, wheals, and other eruptions on the skin.

Bibliography

American Folk Medicine , by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1973 The Complete Medicinal Herbal , by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993 Culpeper’s Complete Herbal & English Physician: Updated With 117 Modern Herbs , by Nicholas Culpeper, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1990, (reprint of 1814) The Healing Plants , by Mannfried Pahlow, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.

, Hauppauge, NY 11788, 1992 The Herbalist Almanac , by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1988, fifth printing, 1994 The Herb Book , by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974. , Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition The Magic of Herbs , by David Conway, published by Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London, England.

, Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. , 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023