Common Ramping-fumitory - Fumaria muralis

The flowers are pink with a dark red tip (up to 12 mm). The lower petal is narrow and nearly parallel sided. The raceme is about the same length as the peduncle. The fruits' pedicels are not recurved. A rather variable species. Often scrambling over and through other vegetation.

Other fumitories

Ref. key in Stace.   This is very difficult genus that can't be identified with confidence from a photo.  The species are all very similar, but also variable within a species.  Determination depends on fine differences in flower, sepal and bract shape and size.  In addition, Stace says 'it is essential to base determinations on well-grown non-shaded material in early or mid flowering season.  Late or shade-grown plants may be very atypical, with short paler petals, longer narrower sepals, relatively long bracts and less or more recurved fruiting pedicels . . .'  

Either obtain confirmation from a County Recorder before submitting a record, or submit detailed images showing key features.  We recommend that you take and retain a specimen; the County Recorder may wish to see this for confirmation.  (RPR)

Cultivated land, walls and wasteland.

Flowers from May to September.

Annual

Widespread in Britain, but with an irregular and rather local distribution.

Not common in Leicestershire and Rutland. The Flora of Leicestershire published in 1988 states that it occurred in only 1 of the 617 tetrads, and it was not recorded in Flora of Rutland (Messenger 1971).

Listed in the current VC55 Checklist (Jeeves, 2011) as subsp. boraei (according to Stace 4th edn., this is the common taxon) and as 'No Recent Record'.

It is listed on the current VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall and Woodward 2022) as Locally Scarce (i.e. present in 4-10 sites)