My Virtual Reading Room

Theme week: flower fairies.


fumitory (FYOO-mi-tawr-ee, FYOO-mi-tohr-ee) - n., any of various Eurasian annual plants (genus Fumaria, esp. F. officinalis) having small, grey-green leaves and small, spurred, purplish flowers.


Also called fumewart and earthsmoke, the latter being a translation of the Latin-via-French name, fūmus, smoke + terrae, of the earth, apparently named after the color of the leaves.



Given me hundreds of years ago,
My name has a meaning you shall know:
It means, in the speech of the bygone folk,
“Smoke of the Earth”—a soft green smoke!

A wonderful plant to them I seemed;
Strange indeed were the dreams they dreamed,
Partly fancy and partly true,
About “Fumiter” and the way it grew.

Where men have ploughed or have dug the ground,
Still, with my rosy flowers, I’m found;
Known and prized by the bygone folk
As “Smoke of the Earth”—a soft green smoke!


---L.