FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
century. One of the prettiest and most interesting, viz. 0. enneaphylla, 
is a native of the Falkland Islands, from whence it was introduced to Kew 
about twenty years ago. It has pure white flowers an inch across, and 
is quite hardy. The American species were chiefly introduced a little 
more than seventy years ago. The genus is a very interesting one to 
botanists, certain of the species producing flowers that never open, and 
which are entirely without petals, but which produce seed abundantly. 
Then there is the elasticity and irritability of the seed-capsules, to 
which reference has been made, and the habit of folding each leaflet in 
the middle, and bringing the three close down to the stalk at nightfall. 
Oxaus Acetosella (little sorrel). Common Wood 
Species. g orre j Rootstocks knotted, creeping, pink. Leaves, 
trefoils, all radical; edges and under-side covered with scattered white 
hairs. Flowers solitary, white, delicately veined with pink; April. 
Height, 3 inches. Perennial. 
O. Bowiei (Bowie’s). Flowering stem 6 to 8 inches. Leaves 
radical, large trefoils, with fringed edges, and slightly downy beneath. 
Flowers, rich rose-red with yellowish centres, in umbels; August. 
Half-hardy. Perennial from South Africa, 1824. The handsomest of 
all the cultivated sorts. 
O. corniculata (homed). Stems, 6 to 20 inches, trailing, branched, 
downy. Leaves, trefoils, all from the sterna Flowers yellow, in 
umbellate cymes; April to October. Annual or biennial. The var. 
rubra has bronze-purple leaflets. 
O. floribunda (abundant-flowered). Stems 6 to 12 inches, erect, 
fleshy and leafy. Leaves, trefoils. Flowers numerous, rosy or white, in 
corymbose-racemes; May to September. Perennial. Native of South 
America (introduced 1823). (Also known as 0. rosea.) Plate 59. 
O. stricta (upright). Much like 0. corniculata, but stem erect, 
with many runners from its base, and more flowers in a cluster; April 
to December. Hardy annual or biennial. 
O. tetraphylla (four-leaved). Rootstock tuberous, with numerous 
scaly bulbs produced at the summit. Leaflets four, large, on short 
stalks. Flowers large, lurid red, produced throughout the summer. A 
Mexican perennial, hardy. 
O. VALDiviENSis (Valdivian). Flowering stems 6 to 8 inches. 
Leaves, smooth trefoils. Flowers deep yellow streaked with red, in 
many-flowered, long-stalked umbels; June to August. Hardy annual. 
Native of Chili (introduced 1862). 
O. VARiABiLis (variable). Flower stems, 3 inches. Leaves, trefoils; 
side leaflets roundish, middle one wedge-shaped at base. There are 
