Hollow root

Appearance

Perennial herb with a hollow tuber, 10–35 cm tall. Stem erect, without a scale below lowest leaf. Leaves 2- or 3-ternate, usually alternate, glaucous or green. Raceme 10–20-flowered; bracts conspicuous, ovate, entire; corolla 20–30 mm, purple, white or rarely pink; sepals absent, petals 4, the 2 inner similar, oblong, broadened and coherent at apex, the 2 outer dissimilar, the lower usually somewhat saccate at base, expanded into broad limb at apex, the upper with curved spur. Fruit a capsule, 20–25 mm long, pendent when ripe. It blooms from March to May.

Naming

Synonyms
Bulbocapnos cavus Bernh.
Capnites cava (L.) Dumort.
Corydalis tuberosa DC.
Fumaria bulbosa var. cava L.
Fumaria cava (L.) Mill.
Pistolochia cava (L.) Bernh.

Subspecies
Corydalis cava subsp. cava
Corydalis cava subsp. marschalliana

Distribution

Europe and southwestern Asia – from northeastern Portugal and Belgium to Ukraine, Ciscaucasia and northern Iran, northward to southern Sweden.

Habitat

It grows in open forests, alluvial forests and mixed deciduous forests, on humus soils, from lowlands to foothills.