44 FARM WEEDS OP CANADA 



SHEEP SORREL (Rumex Acetosella L.) 



Other English names: Sour-grass, Field Sorrel, Red Sorrel. 



Introduced from Europe. Perennial, very persistent by 

 extensively spreading, yellow, fleshy rootstocks. Stems slender, 

 6 to 18 inches, erect or nearly so, branched above. Leaves with 

 silvery ear-like appendages, spreading outward from the base, 

 narrowly arrow-head-shaped, toothless, 1 to 4 inches long, quite 

 smooth and rather fleshy, on long stalks. Flowers numerous 

 in panicle-like racemes, of two kinds on separate plants; the 

 male flowers have conspicuous stamens; the female are much less 

 showy and are tipped with three tiny, crimson, feather-like 

 organs (the stigmas). 



The seeds (Plate 72, fig. 8), as they occur among clover 

 and grass seeds, are generally covered by the three larger con- 

 spicuously veined calyx divisions which fit closely over the seed. 

 The three small divisions, which alternate with these, fit over 

 the angles of the seed outside the edges of the larger divisions. 

 The naked seed when the calyx divisions are removed, is 1/20 

 of an inch long and nearly as broad, triangular-ovate, pale brown, 

 shining. 



Time of flowering: May to August; seeds ripe July to Sep- 

 tember. 



Propagation: By seeds and shallow running rootstocks. 



Occurrence: Naturalized in all parts of the country. 



Injury: The seeds are one of the most abundant impurities 

 in clover and grass seeds. The plants increase rapidly in thin or 

 worn-out meadows and pastures, both in uplands and in hay 

 marshes, crowding out the grass and greatly reducing the crop. 

 Sheep Sorrel is also troublesome in gardens. 



Remedy: Sheep Sorrel is said to be an index of soil charac- 

 ter. It seems to thrive best on sandy or gravelly soils deficient 

 in lime. An application of lime to slightly acid soils produces a 

 more vigorous growth of cultivated crops and curtails the oppor- 



