climbing corydalis

Climbing Corydalis, Ceratocapnos claviculata (also known as Corydalis claviculata), is a slender annual climbing plant in the family Papaveraceae native to western and central Europe, occurring from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula east to central Germany and Poland. The species uses branched, tendril-like leaf tips to climb over neighboring vegetation on shaded, rocky slopes, hedgebanks, woodland margins, and stabilized scree. It is a delicate plant with finely dissected, bluish-green pinnate leaves and small, creamy-white tubular flowers arranged in short racemes. Climbing Corydalis grows in cool, shaded, humid microhabitats, often on acidic, rocky soils in upland areas, and in western Britain and Ireland it is frequently associated with mossy woodland, rocky streambanks, and bracken-covered hillsides. The seeds are dispersed by ants attracted to oily elaiosomes, a form of dispersal known as myrmecochory. The species is considered locally common in western Europe and is not threatened globally, though it is associated with relatively natural, undisturbed habitats where competition from coarser vegetation is moderated by shallow, rocky soils and periodic disturbance.