Fumaria officinalis

Species of flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae

Fumaria officinalis, the common fumitory, drug fumitory or earth smoke, is a herbaceous annual flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae. It is the most common species of the genus Fumaria in Western and Central Europe.

It is an herbaceous annual plant that grows weakly erect and scrambling, with stalks about long. It has slender green leaves. They are two lipped and spurred, with sepals running a quarter the length of the petals. The plant commonly has more than 20 and up to 60 flowers per spike. The fruit is an achene containing one seed. It is approximately globular, slightly wider than high and with an apical notch.

It is native to temperate regions of North Africa, Europe and parts of Western Asia.

It is found in North Africa, within Macaronesia, Canary Islands, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. Within Western Asia it is found in the Caucasus, Cyprus, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Siberia, Syria and Turkey. In eastern Europe, it is found within Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine. In middle Europe, it is in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Switzerland. In northern Europe, in Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and United Kingdom. In southeastern Europe, within Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. Also in southwestern Europe, it is found in France, Portugal and Spain.

Usage of this plant as medicine began in Europe in the late Middle Ages, although it was known since antiquity. The most common traditional uses were as a digestive aid and a diuretic, but various folk traditions throughout Europe ascribed to it a multitude of uses: constipation, cystitis, arteriosclerosis, rheumatism, arthritis, as a blood purifier, for hypoglycaemia, infections,

Since 1963, it has been marketed as a herbal medicine in France.