OXALIDAGE^-WOOD SORREL FAMILY 



WOOD SORREL 



Oxalis. 



Oxalis, Greek, sour, from the acid juice. 



Oxalis is a genus largely of tropical and sub-tropical plants, and 

 although there are many species native to the North, none of the cultivated 

 species are hardy in our gardens. 



Plant. — Annual or perennial, often with rootstocks or scaly bulbs, the 

 sap sour. 

 Leaves. — Palmately three-foliate in our species; leaflets obcordate. 

 Flowers. — White, pink, purple, or yellow. 

 Sepals. — Five. 

 Petals. — Five. 



Stamens. — Ten, five longer and five shorter, all anther-bearing. 

 Ovary. — Five-celled; styles five, separate; stigmas terminal. 

 Fruit. — A capsule. 



Violet Wood Sorrel, Oxalis violhcea, is native to the Middle 

 and Southern States; has rather fleshy, glabrous leaves and rose- 

 violet flowers in simple umbels. Is used in rock work but is tran- 

 sient and hardly desirable. 



• White Wood Sorrel, Oocalis acetosilla, lives in the open woods; 

 has solitary flowers, white, veined with deep-pink, on scapes six 

 inches high. Has a world-wide habitat, as it is found in America, 

 Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. 



Our best-known representative of the genus is the delicate little 

 plant that lives about our house yards and gardens and by the 

 edge of cultivated fields, Oxalis strlcta, often called by country 

 people Sheep's Sorrel. 



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