170 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



Channel Islands. It ascends to 4000 ft. in the 

 Highlands. 



As the English name implies, Wood Sorrel is a 

 woodland plant which is found in moist, shady places, 

 woods and copses. It occurs in damp oak-woods on 

 clays and loams, in the sandy oak-wood and oak- 

 birch-heath association, on saiidy soils, in the pine- 

 wood association, on siliceous soils in the sandy 

 oak-wood association, amongst bracken on siliceous 

 grass-lands, in damp ash-woods on limestone, on 

 limestone pavements, as they are called, on the 

 Pennines, in arctic alpine grass-land, in corries in 

 the arctic alpine zone, and in fissures in the shade at 

 the same elevations. 



Wood Sorrel is a stemless plant. The habit is 

 like that of rosette or bulbous plants with all the 

 leaves radical. The root-stock is creeping, slender, 

 knotted, toothed and scaly. The leaves have each 

 three leaflets, the leaf-stalk long, the leaflets hairy, 

 inversely heart-shaped or ovate, delicate green, rather 

 acid in taste (hence oxalis and acetosella), containing 

 binoxalate of potash. The stipules are broad and 

 membranous. 



The flowers are solitary, borne on scapes or flower- 

 stalks, in the axils. The stalks are long and slender, 

 with two scaly bracts in the middle, and the flowers 

 are white, with purple veins. The sepals are small, 

 oblong or ovate, blunt and thin. The petals are 

 inversely ovate, notched, meeting above the claw. 

 The corolla is four times as long as the calyx. The 



