274 SOROCEPHALUS. 
Organ mountains in 1837; and the former is 3 
or 4 inches high, and has red flowers,—the latter 
6 or 8 inches high, and has scarlet flowers. 
SORBUS. See Pyrus and Asm (Mounrain). 
SORGHUM. See Inpran Mizuer. 
SOROCEPHALUS. A genus of ornamental, 
evergreen, purple-flowered, Cape-of-Good-Hope 
shrubs, of the protea family. Seven or eight 
species, varying in height from 2 to 4 feet, and 
chiefly blooming from about midsummer till the 
early part of autumn, have been introduced to the 
gardens of Britain; and most love a soil of loamy 
peat, and are propagable from cuttings. 
SORREL. Three hardy, culinary, perennial- 
rooted herbaceous plants, of the dock genus. 
Two of them, the common sorrel and the sheep’s 
sorrel, are natives of Britain; and the other, 
French sorrel, was introduced about 250 years 
ago from France. ~ 
Common sorrel, Rumexz acetosa, is the best 
known and naturally most abundant of the three 
species. Its root is long, tapering, and somewhat 
woody, and has astringent properties; its stem 
is cylindrical, striated, erect, simple, leafy, and 
from 12 to 24 inches high ; its leaves are oblong, 
ovate, and arrow-shaped,—smooth in texture, 
and powerfully and agreeably acidulous,— the 
radical ones stalked and obtuse,—and the cauline 
ones sessile, clasping, pointed, and a little rolled 
back ; and its flowers are dioecious, and grow in 
branched panicles, arranged in half-whorls, and 
have permanent tuberculated petals of a greenish 
colour, and bloom in June and July. The astrin- 
gency of the root is due to tannic acid; and the 
acidulousness of the leaves to tartaric acid and 
the binoxalate of potash. 
Sorrel inhabits the wild grassy pastures of most 
parts of Continental Europe, from Greece to Lap- 
land ; and it is common in many of the pastures, 
both high and low, of Britain,—and it indicates 
a sour state of the soil, which cannot ordinarily 
be corrected without an application of calcareous 
manure,—and as it is never eaten by live stock, 
except when they are hard pressed by hunger, 
and cannot get better food, it has practically the 
character of a rank coarse weed, which both im- 
poverishes the ground by its own growth, and 
keeps down useful herbage by its occupancy and 
its shade. It becomes specially abundant and 
luxuriant in seasons when the spring growth of 
the grasses is backward and stunted; it seems 
generally to abound in the proportion in which 
free humic acid exists in the soil; it can easily be 
kept down or starved out by means of liming or 
of the application of soap-maker’s waste ; and the 
extermination of it from some fields which it 
specially infests, would permanently increase 
their value from 80 to 50 per cent. 
Sorrel has been celebrated from very ancient 
times for its cooling, antiscorbutic, diuretic, and 
gratefully esculent properties. The expressed 
juice of its leaves, or a decoction of them in 
whey, affords an useful drink in cases of inflam- 
SORREL TREE. 
matory fever; and the leaves themselves, eaten 
freely as a salad, cool the blood and act as either 
a cure or a preventive of scurvy. The plant is cul- 
tivated in France and in some English gardens 
as a highly esteemed pot-herb, and for use at all 
seasons in soups, sauces, and salads; it is far 
worthier of a large and constant place in the 
kitchen garden than many of the plants which 
commonly figure there ; and it seems to be hin- 
dered only by the caprice of fashion from being 
a general and useful favourite. It is even em- 
ployed in some parts of northern Europe, in sea- 
sons of scarcity, as one of several substitutes for 
bread. It thrives best in any garden mould 
which is moderately rich and more friable than 
tenacious; and it may be raised either from 
seeds sown in spring, and the seedlings trans- 
planted, or from offsets and divisions of the root 
in either spring or autumn, planted at distances 
of a foot. 
The sheep’s sorrel, Rumex acetosella, is a com- 
mon and plentiful weed of dry banks and gra- 
velly soils in most parts of Britain; and, when- 
ever it gets possession of any spot of ground, it 
propagates itself promptly and rapidly by means 
of its spreading roots, and soon becomes abund- 
ant. Its stem is wavy, slender, often decumbent, 
and generally about a foot long; its leaves, in 
the lower part of the stem, are hastate,—and 
in the upper part, lanceolate-hastate ; and its 
flowers are dicecious, small, and separate, and 
grow in numerous, whorled, leafless clusters, and 
bloom from May till July. This plant has simi- 
lar taste and properties to the common dock, and 
was formerly noticed in the dispensatories as a 
medicinal plant ; but it is inferior to the com- 
mon dock, and is not so much used. 
The French or Roman or bucklered sorrel, 
Rumex scutatus, closely resembles the common 
sorrel in properties and uses, but has a different 
habit of growth, and loves a light, dry, rich soil 
in an open situation, and is preferred by some 
persons on account of the facilities of its cultiva- 
tion, and by others for the sake of its superior 
adaptation to soups. “It is,” says Miller, “a 
great runner at the root, by which means it is 
easily propagated, and must be planted at a 
large distance, two feet square at least. And if 
the flower-stems and rambling branches are cut 
off in the beginning of July, the roots will soon 
put out new leaves; so that by cutting down the 
shoots of some plants at different times, there 
will always be a supply of young leaves, which is 
the only part of the plant used in the kitchen.” 
SORREL (Mountain). See Mountain Sor- 
REL. 
SHEEP SORREL. See Sorret. 
SORREL TREE. A hardy, evergreen, orna- 
mental, North American tree, of the andromeda 
genus, and heath order,—Andromeda arborea. It 
was introduced to Britain about the middle of 
last century. It commonly attains a height of 
about 40 feet ; and it carries white flowers from 
