Bill's Botanical Forays

Yellow Fumewort – Corydalis flavula (Raf.) DC. – is another spring bloomer that is a denizen of bottomland woods and adjacent areas and is commonly found in parts of Eastern North America. As typical of a member of the Papaveraceae family (poppy) it contains a large number of alkaloids. It ranges from Ontario in the north, the Eastern Seaboard on the east, the Gulf Coast on the south, and Nebraska and Kansas on the West. It is conspicuously absent from New England except for a small number of populations in Connecticut.

Yellow fumewort’s flowers are bilaterally oriented and its leaves are finely dissected. The seed pod is pendant and contains several seeds.

It is found in the Refuge’s bottomland woods.