286 THE WOOD-SORREL FAMILY. 



GREAT YELLOW WOOD=SORREL. {^Plate LXXXVIII.) 

 Ox alls grdndis. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Wood-sorrel. Yellow. Scentless, North Carolina and Tennessee May-August. 



northward. 



Flcnvers : growing in terminal, erect cymes with thread-like pedicels bracted at 

 their bases. Calvx: with five, oblong, often ciliate sepals, /'-f/^/j : five, long ; 

 squared or rounded at their apices. Stamens: ten, five being long and five short, 

 monodelphous at the base. Styles : five, hairy. Leaves: with long, pubescent 

 petioles, the three leaflets broadly obcordate, somewhat unequal in size, sparingly 

 ciliate ; bright green and lustrous ; thin. Stem : one to four feet high ; leafy ; 

 rigid; pubescent. 



In the hollows of bare and often unsympathetic looking places along the 

 river's banks, this great one of the Oxalis tribe forms often thick and 

 rounded clumps of its clover-like leaves, and throws out its cheery-coun- 

 tenanced little blossoms. They always seem fresh and wide awake, per- 

 haps because in accordance with the old maxim they so early in the evening 

 fold their leaflets together and then unfold them with the very first gleam of 

 morning sun. Included in the genus are fully two hundred and fifty species, 

 of which the greater number are partial to a warm, tropical climate. 



O. stricta, lady's sorrel, or upright yellow wood-sorrel, an erect and 

 branching species, puts out an abundance of pale, bluish green leaflets so 

 sensitive to the touch that they close even when handled but slightly. Its 

 fragrant, yellow flowers, tinted with red at their petals' bases, are rather 

 small and grow in terminal, umbel-like cymes. 



O. reciirva, large-flowered wood- sorrel, which by some was thought to 

 be the same as Oxalis stricta, is now recognised as a distinct, delicate species, 

 — one described long ago by Stephen Elliott. It bears yellow flowers ; the 

 stems and pedicels are villous ; while by the erect, or spreading capsules are 

 distinctly projected the five styles. 



O. cymbsa, tall yellow-sorrel, would probably always be known as a wood- 

 sorrel by its large, obcordate leaflets. Sometimes it grows, however, to the 

 astonishing height of four feet. But slightly hairy are its stems and pedi- 

 cels while its yellow flowers are very small and borne in branching cymes. 



O. violacea, violet wood-sorrel, one of the dearest of the deep wood's 

 plants, sends up its leaves and flowering scapes from a pinkish bulb, and 

 produces flowers that are either violet, or white, tinted with violet. Only 

 rarely, however, are they pure white. It grows usually from eight to ten 

 inches and is rather chary of its foliage which throughout is glabrous. 

 Often as late as November, when the days are warm, 'it comes again into full 

 bloom. The scapes of this species bear several flowers. 



