4] 
OXALIS fruticosa. 
The Shrubby Wood-sorrel. 
DECANDRIA PENTAGYNIA. 
Nat. ord. OxXaALipAcez. é 
OXALIS. Botanical Register, vol. 2. fol. 117, 
Sect. Phyllodoxys, Endl. ; caulescentes, suffruticose, caule folioso, petiolis 
sepissime aphyllis foliaceo-dilatatis. Endl. gen. no. 6058. 
O. fruticosa ; caule suffruticoso ramoso, petiolis dilatatis foliaceis lanceolato- 
Iinearibus utrinque acutis subaphyllis, pedunculis axillaribus valdé ab- 
breviatis 2-fidis, pedicellis subfasciculatis, staminibus omnibus pistillo 
longioribus, ovarii loculamentis monospermis. dug. St. Hilaire Flora 
Brasilia meridionalis, vol. 1. p. 116. 
O. fruticosa. Raddi in mem. ital. vol. 18. p. 401. DeCand. prodr. vol. 1. 
690. 
Nothing in the Vegetable Kingdom is more curious than 
the way in which plants are enabled to alter one organ, so as 
to perform the office of another, when that other is from any 
cause destroyed, or undeveloped. Thus in Cactaceous and 
other succulent plants which have no leaves, the surface of 
the stem is greatly enlarged, and performs the office of breath- 
ing and digesting; in the Combretum, which has no tendrils 
to climb with, the stalks of the leaves hook back, and furnish 
the plant with claws of strength ; when, in the Wattle trees 
of our Australian colonies, nature refuses to command the 
appearance of leaves, straightway the leafstalks flatten and 
expand, and take their place; and so of multitudes of others. 
The plant before us is an illustration of this singular pro- 
perty. It is a Woodsorrel in every part of its organization, 
except indeed that it forms a woody stem and so becomes a 
shrub—and yet how entirely unlike a Woodsorrel is its ap- 
pearance! Instead of the pretty irritable trefoil foliage so 
universal among those plants, it has broad lanceolate blades, 
with almost the veins of a Grass-leaf. Upon looking, how- 
August, 1841. Q 
