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earthstar

~ a celebration of nature

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Tag Archives: Fumaria officinalis

In flower now

12 Sunday Apr 2026

Posted by sconzani in wildflowers

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

British wildflowers, Cardamine pratensis, Common fumitory, Common Stork's-bill, Cornsalad, Cuckoo flower, Erodium cicutarium, Forget-me-not, Fumaria officinalis, Hairy violet, Honesty, Lamium purpureum, Lunnaria annua, Myosotis species, Red dead-nettle, Spring colour, spring wildflowers, Valerianella locusta, Viola hirta

It seems every time I step out the door now I notice new, different wildflowers in bloom. These are some of this week’s finds; for no particular reason, I seem to have focused on the blue / pink colour tones.

The grassy area on Cardiff Bay’s Barrage is full of Common stork’s-bill (Erodium cicutarium), looking very lush.

Cornsalad (Valerianella locusta) is blooming in many of the local areas of waste ground, proving those areas are not really a waste at all.

Just in time for the emergence of the Orange-tip butterflies that use this wildflower as one of their larval plants: Cuckoo flower (Cardamine pratensis).

One of the Forget-me-not (Myosotis) species, possibly Common (M. sylvatica), though the plant did seem very small.

A wildflower with a lot of variation in its flower colours, Common fumitory (Fumaria officinalis), also known by the vernacular name Earth smoke.

At this time of year, the east and west paddocks at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park are tinged lilac with the flowers of Hairy violet (Viola hirta).

Escaped from its original garden plantings and now adorning the edges of local lanes, Honesty (Lunnaria annua).

This was the scene alongside the bike / pedestrian path around the edge of Grangemoor Park this week, where swathes of beautiful Red dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum) are in full bloom.

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Common fumitory

16 Sunday May 2021

Posted by sconzani in spring, wildflowers

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

British wildflowers, Common fumitory, Fumaria officinalis, Spring colour, spring flowers

This native British wildflower may well be the ‘common weed of gardens, arable fields and waste places’ that my Flora Britannica describes, but I’ve only found it once, earlier this week, in my local area, despite there being plenty of those suitable habitats. This is Common fumitory (Fumaria officinalis), which also goes by the vernacular names of Earth smoke and Red-tipped-web. Flora Britannica goes on to explain:

Both scientific and English names stem from the Latin Fumus terrae – ‘smoke of the earth’. The delicate, grey-green leaves do have a slightly smoky appearance, enough to persuade one seventeenth-century herbalist that ‘it appeareth to those that behold it at a distance, as if the ground were all of a smoak’.

210516 common fumitory

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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