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The dyer’s woodruff, Asperula tinctoria, is a 
native of the South of Europe, and was intro- 
duced to Britain in 1764. Its root is perennial; 
its stems are reclining, and about 9 or 12 inches 
long; its lower whorls of foliage are six-leaved, 
its middle ones four-leaved, and its upper ones 
two-leaved ; its leavesare linear and three-nerved ; 
and its flowers are trifid, smooth, and whitish, 
and bloom in Juneand July. Theroots are used 
in Dalmatia and some other countries for dyeing 
wool and cloth of a reddish colour; but they are 
not better than madder, and do not produce so 
large a crop. 
WOOD-RUSH. Theindigenous junceous plants 
of the genus luzula. See the article Rusu. 
WOODSIA. A small genus of very handsome 
ferns of the polypody tribe. The Ilva or oblong 
species, W. zlvensis, occurs wild in many parts of 
Britain, and has a height of about 6 inches; and 
blooms in June and July; and the northern spe- 
cies, W. hyperborea, inhabits some of the lofty 
rocky mountains of Scotland, and has a height of 
about 3 or 4 inches, and blooms from July till 
September. Both species have fibrous roots, and 
stalked, erect, tufted, pinnate and pinnatifid 
fronds, clothed with simple hairs or with narrow 
pointed scales; and they thrive best ina mixture 
of peat and loam, and may be propagated either 
from seed or by radical division. 
WOOD-SORREL,—botanically Oxalis. Alarge 
and diversified genus of thalamiflorous plants, 
constituting the type and the main part of the 
natural order Oxalidez.—This order has a near 
botanical affinity to the rue, the zygophyllum, and 
the balsam families, and it is distinguished prin- 
cipally by the peculiar habit of its plants, and it 
comprises within the gardens of Britain, species 
belonging to the genera oxalis, biophatum, and 
averrhoa.— The wood-sorrel genus has a ca- 
lyx of five segments, either quite distinct or 
united at the base,—a corolla of five petals, ten 
stamens, and five pistils, with the five exterior 
stamens shorter than the five interior ones,—and 
a seed-vessel of an oblong or cylindrical form. 
It is a genus of considerable utility and of very 
great beauty, and begins to challenge the serious 
attention of the farmer, and has long engaged 
much care and admiration from the gardener and 
the florist. Two species grow wild in Britain; 
about 120 have been introduced from other coun- 
tries, principally the Cape of Good Hope and 
South America; and a great many more are 
known. A few of the introduced species are an- 
nuals; a few are fibrous-rooted evergreen herbs; 
threé or four are evergreen undershrubs; and 
most of the remainder are bulbous-rooted herbs. 
Several are cultivated for culinary and economi- 
cal purposes; and all possess more or less elegance 
in the flower garden. The roots of some and the 
leaves of several are esculent; and almost all 
have more or less of a very agreeable acidity, 
which depends on the presence of a small quan- 
tity of oxalate of potash,—and a few of the tro- 
pical ones possess this property in so eminent a 
degree as to contain a comparatively large quan- 
tity of oxalic acid. A few are hardy; a few re- 
quire the stove; and the vast majority are suited 
to the greenhouse. The largest of ten groups or 
divisions of the genus—so large in fact as to com- 
prise about one-third of all the species—takes the 
common British sorrel as its type, and has no 
stems, petiolate trifoliate leaves, and one-flowered 
scapes; another and much smaller tribe takes the 
other indigenous sorrel as its type, and has leafy 
stems, palmate-trifoliate leaves, sessile leaflets, 
and one, two, or many-flowered scapes; a third 
has elongated leafy stems, trifoliate sessile leaves, 
and axillary one-flowered scapes; a fourth has 
elongated sparce-leaved stems, stalked and from 
three to five leafleted leaves, and axillary one- 
flowered scapes; a fifth has no stems, stalked and 
from three to many leafieted leaves, and one, 
two, or many-flowered scapes; a sixth has no 
stems, simple leaves, and one or many-flowered 
scapes ; a seventh has no stems, winged petioles, 
bifoliate or trifoliate leaves, and one-flowered 
scapes ; an eighth has leafy stems, petiolate and 
from three to five leafleted leaves, and leafy 
stems ; a ninth has no stems, palmate and peltate 
petioles, from five to thirteen leafleted leaves, and 
one-Hlowered scapes; and the tenth has leafy 
stems, trifoliate leaves with the middle foliole 
petiolate, and many-flowered scapes. 
The little sorrel, or common wood-sorrel, Oxa- 
lis acetosella, grows wild in woods, under hedges, 
and in other shaded situationsin many parts of Bri- 
tain. Its root is squamosely bulbous, horizontal, 
toothed, fleshy, and of a reddish colour; its leaves 
are radical, petiolate, and ternate like those of 
trefoil; its leaflets are obcordate, quite entire, 
hairy, of a yellowish green colour above, and pur- 
plish underneath ; its scapes are radical and sin- 
gle-flowered ; its flowers are bell-shaped, droop- 
ing, either white or purplish, and always streaked 
with fine branching purple veins, and bloom in 
April and May; its capsules are membranous 
and two-sided ; and its seeds are invested with a 
white, fleshy, dehiscent tegument. This plant is 
inodorous, and has a strong, pleasant, acidulous 
taste, and makes a refreshing and wholesome 
conserve with fine sugar. It isan object of great 
beauty, and seems to have been the true or ori- 
ginal shamrock of Ireland. See the article Suam- 
Rock. The expressed juice of it reddens vegeta- 
ble blues, coagulates milk, and precipitates lime 
from solution. The plant is a very agreeable 
and wholesome salad; and possesses refrigerant, 
antiseptic, and antiscorbutic properties; and 
when boiled in milk gives off its acidulousness 
to the whey ;—and either this whey or the ex- 
pressed juice of the plant, much diluted with 
water, may be used as a good refrigerant drink 
in fevers. The plant thrives in any common soil, 
and is easily propagated from offsets; and these 
should be planted in a shady border. 
The small horned or yellow procumbent wood- 
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