SPECIES OF OXALIS NOW WILD IN INDIA . 
327 
longer than petioles, axillary, furnished with two scaly opposite bracteoles 
above the middle. Calyx gamosepalous, deeply divided ; sepals 5, small, 
*4 cm. long, *2 cm. broad, oblong or ovate. Petals 5, inserted by a short 
claw and cohering above it, obovate blunt, white or pale-rose veined 
with purple, yellowish at base, four times the length of the sepals. ■ 
Stamens 10, in two whorls, the five exterior shorter, *7 length of 
the longer which are *4 cm. long. Ovary ovoid, five angled, erect, 
glabrous ; cells 2-3- seeded, styles 5, slender, a little longer than the 
stamen ; stigmas blunt. 
Oxalis Acetosella has its natural distribution throughout the world in 
northern temperate latitudes. It succeeds in America north of the 4l°N 
line, is present throughout Europe and into Siberia but is absent at 
least in the wild state in South America, in Africa and in Australia. 
According to Small, who has revised the genus for the “ North American 
Flora,” the new-world form of the plant would seem to differ from nearly 
all the Indian specimens examined in having the peduncles shorter than 
the petioles. It is a temperate or cold-loving plant the presence of which 
in India can be accounted for only through the modifying influence on 
climate which the presence of the Himalayas brings to latitudes bordering 
on the tropics. An analysis of Calcutta herbarium records shows no 
instance of the presence of 0. Acetosella in India below 10,000 ft. 
Plate I. — 1, plant, nat. size; 2, calyx x 10; 3, corolla X 10; 
4, andrcecium x 20; B, gynseceum x 25. 
2. Oxalis Griffithii Edgewfe Hook. f. in Hook. f. FI. Brit. Ind. i,486. 
A small perennial herb, 5-15 cm. high, with a creeping thickened 
rootstock bearing numerous fibrous roots and densely clothed with the 
persistent bases of the leaf stalks. Leaves trifoliolate, radical with 
somewhat thickened hairy 5-12 cm. long more or less ridged petioles; 
leaflets broadly triangular, slightly refuse, hairy ; stipules small, ovate 
lanceolate. Flowers solitary, axillary on elongated stoutish hairy 
pedicels ; pedicels, when fully developed as long as or longer than the 
petioles, with two linear oblong hairy bracteoles. above the middle. 
Sepals 5, narrowly ovate to oblong, pubescent especially on the margins, 
*4 cm long. Petals 5, narrowly obovate, 1 cm. long. Stamens 10, the 
longer *5 cm. long, the shorter two-thirds the length of the longer. 
Ovary obtusely five angled, glabrous ; styles 5, diverging, as long as the 
longer stamens. 
Since the discovery of 0. Griffithii in the Himalayas and its 
publication in the Flora of British India, it has been collected by 
Henry in the highlands of Central China. 
