Fumitory

(Fumaria officinalis)

Also called: Earth smoke, Horned poppy, Wax dolls.

Description: This herb grows freely in waste places and often in cornfields. It is a slender, straggling plant with divided leaves of a bluish-green colour. Many pink flowers in short spikes grow on a common erect stalk.

Medicinal uses: This herb contains fumaric acid which is so useful in chronic skin eruptions with scabs, and pimples on the face and also for freckles. It helps to clear the skin of many troubles.

Culpeper said: 'The juice of Fumitory and docks mingled with vinegar, and the places gently washed or wet therewith, cures all sorts of scabs, pimples, blotches, wheals and pushes which rise on the face or hands or any other part of the body'.

Gerard said: 'It helpeth in the summer time those that are troubled with scabs'.

Part used: The herb.

Directions for use: 1 pint of boiling water should be poured on to 1 oz. of the herb and when cold and strained a wineglassful should be taken three times daily, and more often in bad cases.

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Fumitory is named from the Latin fumus, earth smoke, which refers either to the appearance of it's lovely foliage or to the belief that it was produced, not from seed, but from vapours rising out of the earth. Pliny said: 'Just as smoke causes the eyes to water so also does fumitory, when applied to them, and hence its name'.

The name 'Wax dolls' is because of the rose-coloured flowers with the little dark purple heads which look very like the wax dolls of old.