Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 187 



YELLOW WOOD SORREL; LADY'S SORREL (Ox- 



alis corniculata) is not a woodland plant but is 

 very common along roadsides, in gardens, dooryards 

 and fields. The pale green, slender stem is quite 

 erect, branches but little, if at all, and grows from 

 three to twelve inches tall. The leaves are long- 

 stemmed and trifoliate, the three leaflets being broad- 

 ly heart-shaped. They are very sensitive and close 

 if roughly handled. They also close at night, or "go 

 to sleep," as children call it. 



The leaves have very acid and sour juices, similar 

 in taste to those of the common Red Sorrel that, by 

 the way, belongs to an entirely different family 

 (Buck-wheat). Country school children often chew 

 the leaves of both of these, as the sour taste has an 

 agreeable twang. 



The bright golden-yellow flowers are quite frag- 

 rant; they open only in the sunshine and close tight- 

 ly at night. They grow in few-flowered umbels at 

 the end of the stem on slender peduncles from the 

 axils of some of the leaves; the petals are thin, 

 notched at the ends and set in a five-parted calyx. 

 After their flowering season, little erect, pointed pods 

 take the place of the flowers. This species is a very 

 common herb or weed throughout our range. 



LOW YELLOW WOOD SORREL (Oxalis repens) 

 has several prostrate and creeping stems and numer- 

 ous erect, leafy branches; it is very low, seldom at- 

 taining a height of more than three inches, although 

 the prostrate stem may measure a foot in length. The 

 little yellow flowers are set on short deflexed pedi- 

 cels; this peculiar arrangement is more prominent 

 after the seed pods have developed as the stems are 

 even more deflexed at that period; it looks just as 

 though some one had bent each of the flower pedicels 

 sharply back at their junction with the stem or ped- 

 uncle. This species is less common than the preced- 

 ing. 



