41 



OXALIS fruticosa. 



The Shrubby Wood-sorrel. 



DECANDRIA PENTAGYNIA. 

 Nat. ord. Oxalidace^e. 

 OXALIS. Botanical Register, vol. 2. fol. 117. 



Sect. Phyllodoxys, Endl. ; caulescentes, suffruticosas, caule folioso, petiolis 

 scepissime aphyllis foliaceo-dilatatis. Endl. gen. no. 6058. 



0. fruticosa; caule suffruticoso ramoso, petiolis dilatatis foliaceis lanceolato- 

 linearibus utrinque acutis subapbyllis, pedunculis axillaribus valde ab- 

 breviatis 2-fidis, pedicellis subfasciculatis, staminibus omnibus pistillo 

 longioribus, ovarii loculamentis rnonospermis. Aug. St. Hilaire Flora 

 Brasilia meridionalis, vol. I. 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- 



Attgust, 1841. q 



