Short annual a naturalizing species

Picture yourself in Bavaria in the spring, in a friend's backyard. Your host, showing you around, spots this little weed, and exclaims, "Schau mal, Erdrauch!" (translation below ...)

Our little plant is common now as a naturalizing species in North America. It is indeed native to Europe and the Mediterranean, and is widely found throughout the United States, and certainly in all of the Southern states.

It is an annual, appearing in the early spring with each plant lasting but one short season. It's not very tall, usually less than a foot. Its fragile leaves are divided and fern-like, and often very chalky and gray. Because of this, the plants, when abundant enough, resemble a sort of smoky fog cloaking the ground.

The small flowers, which are starting to appear now, are somewhat tubular and pink, each with two narrow sepals and petals. The petals are purplish toward the tips.

One of the petals is swollen at the base, and forms what we botanists call a rounded "spur."

The flowers are able to pollinate themselves, not relying on insect visitors. After the blooms, small, rounded seed-pods are formed on the stem, each pod containing a single globose seed.

Once spring decides to become summer, whether in Europe or America, the little plants are all dried up and gone, but the tiny seeds are left in the soil, waiting for the next spring.

This plant, which is related to both the poppy and mustard families, has reputedly been effective as a medicinal plant, even recently.

Tonics made from it have been used as an eye-wash and as a cure for acne, among other things. (Of course, don't take this as an outright recommendation for using it.) Whatever medicinal qualities it does have must come from the organic compounds (alkaloids) that give its fresh stems and leaves a decidedly acrid, bitter taste. The plants in bloom are a bright, new indicator of the coming spring. They might be weeds, but they don't last very long.

Translation? Your southern German friend is saying, "Lookey there! Earthsmoke!"

This week's mystery plant is: Fumaria officinalis.

John Nelson is the curator of the Herbarium at the University of South Carolina. As a public service, USC offers free plant identifications. For more information about the herbarium, visit www.herbarium.org or call 803-777-8196.