Fumitory

Fumitory is a scrambling annual of the poppy family, with slender, trailing stems ten to fifty centimetres long and deeply divided leaves of a bluish or silvery green that have been likened to parsley. From spring into autumn it carries spikes of small, two-lipped, spurred flowers, pink tipped with mauve or purple. It is the commonest fumitory of western and central Europe, is native also to North Africa and western Asia, and has been introduced to Australia. The name goes back to the medieval Latin fumus terrae, smoke of the earth, explained either by the smoky, blue-green haze of the plant or by Pliny's report that its juice drew tears as smoke does; a Greek legend held that it sprang not from seed but from vapour rising out of the ground. Smoke runs through its lore as well. Ancient exorcists burned it to drive out evil spirits, as in the gardens of St Gall, and in medieval Europe witches were said to burn it to call up spirits of the underworld. It was burned to purify and protect a new home, scattered indoors and rubbed on shoes for luck, and in Germany it guarded against evil. Cunningham sprinkles an infusion around the house and rubs it on the shoes each week to draw money, and Kynes burns it at Samhain to reach the ancestors and after ritual to ground surplus energy.