68 
OXALIS sensitiva. 
Sensitive Wood-sorrel. 
DECANDRIA PENTAGYNIA. 
Nat. ord. ÖXALIDACEE. 
OXALIS. Botanical Register, vol. 2. fol. 117. 
O. sensitiva; foliis pinnatis multijugis, pedunculis apice multifloris. 
O. sensitiva ; Linn. sp. pl. 622. Jacq. oz. mon. no. 21. t. 78. f. 4. Wal- 
pers repertorium, 1. 491. 
Biophytum sensitivum, DeCand. Prodr. 1. 690. 
Herba sentiens, Rumphius Herb. Amboin. V. p. 301. 
'This curious little sensitive plant often comes up among 
mould received from the East Indies, and, being an annual, 
will sometimes take possession of the soil in the garden pots 
of hothouses, so as to become troublesome. It is found wild 
over all the tropics of Asia; or at least, if there are several 
species confounded under the same name, some one or other 
is there found. 
Dr. Wight inclines to the opinion that various species are 
mixed up by botanists under the name of Oxalis sensitiva, 
differing in their manner of growth, hairiness, form of the 
leaflets, and other circumstances. We know not how this 
may be. The kind now figured is the only one that we have 
seen in cultivation. It was raised in the garden of the Hor- 
ticultural Society from seed sent from China by Mr. Fortune; 
and is quite different in the stamens and stigmas from the 
plant figured by Dr. Wight under the name of Biophytum 
Candolleanum. 
DeCandolle distinguished this, and another species, from 
the genus Oxalis, because the stamens are separated all the 
way to the base: but the analogy of the genus Geranium 
forbids us to attach any importance to the circumstance. 
Rumphius tells us, that in Amboyna the leaves are so 
extremely irritable that they cannot bear that the wind should 
