Yellow Wood Sorrel; Lady’s Sorrel (Oxalis corni- 
culata) is not a woodland plant but is very common 
along roadsides, in gardens, dooryards and fields. The 
pale green, slender stem is quite erect, branches but lit¬ 
tle, if at all, and grows from three to twelve inches tall. 
The leaves are long-stemmed and trifoliate, the three 
leaflets being broadly heart-shaped. They are very sen¬ 
sitive and close if roughly handled. 
The leaves have very acid and sour juices, similar in 
taste to those of the common Red Sorrel that, by the 
way, belongs to an entirely different family (Buck¬ 
wheat). Country school children often chew the leaves 
of both of these, as the sour taste has an agreeable 
twang. 
The bright golden-yellow flowers are quite fragrant; 
they open only in the sunshine and close tightly at 
night. They grow in few-flowered umbels at the end of 
the stem on slender peduncles from the axils of some 
of the leaves. After their flowering season, little erect, 
pointed pods take the place of the flowers. This species 
is a very common herb or weed throughout our range, 
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