|
WOOD SORREL
Oxalis Acetosella
Family GERANIACEAE
One of the most graceful and charming of our native plants. It abounds in moist, shady woods. A favourite position for it is the rotten centre of some old beech stump from wruch it will spread in a loose cluster, or growing on the ground, often in great abundance.
The roots are fine and scattered along the creeping knotted pink stems. The leaflets, fresh yellow green trefoils, backed with purple, droop close to the stalk at night or on the approach of rain, contracting or expanding under the influence of darkness or light respectively. The leaves have a pleasant acid flavour due to oxalic acid.
The white flowers, streaked with pink, are large and are borne on long and slender radical stems, and consist of five sepals, five petals, ten stamens and five stigmas;
The fruit is a five-angled irritable capsule, from which the black seeds are thrown with great force, up to a distance of several yards.
Flowering April and May.
|
To be found in moist, shady places, woods and hedgebanks. It is a perennial. The sorrel wood rootleaves are egg-shaped, but those on the stem are much narrower. The hairy stems, up to three feet high, forking repeatedly above, and towards their extremity, becoming glandular. The sorrel wood scentless flowers consist of the dark red calyx, and the rosy-pink petais.
The numerous small yellow flowers sorrel wood are less than a quarter of an inch across and are crowded into erect panicles. The sepals are equal at the base, and the petals equal. The footstalks continue to wood sorrel lengthen after flowering, and curve downwards, so that the oblong seed-pods are all pendulous. These pods are about half an inch long, brown when ripe. The flowers may be wood sorrel found in July and August.
|
brought by Plants To Buy Online |
|
