Wood-Sorrel Family:-

The Wood-Sorrel Family is "rather weak, non-woody plants, mostly perennials, up to about a foot high, with long-stalked trefoil leaves, the leaflets often closing up at night. Flowers open cup-shaped, white, pink or yellow, with 5 petals, sepals and styles, and 10 stamens, 5 long and 5 short. Fruits exploding when ripe." from Collins Pocket Guide to Wild Flowers by David McClintock and R.S.R. Fitter assisted by Francis Rose - ISBN 0 00 219363 9 - Eleventh Impression 1978.

Wood-Sorrel Family plant table with its Common Name - Botanical Name. Flowering Months Range. Habitat with link to that Water Fern to Yew Wild Flower Families Gallery:-

Common Name

Botanical Name

Flowering Months

Habitat

Bermuda Buttercup

Oxalis pes-caprae

March-June

This bulbous perennial herb is naturalised as a weed of agriculture, especially in bulb-fields, in milder areas. It does not set seed, but spreads vigorously by easily detached underground bulblets that are resistant to all but the strongest herbicides. Outside the Channel Islands and Isles of Scilly, populations are usually casual. Lowland.

Large-flowered Pink-Sorrel

Oxalis debilis

(Oxalis corymbosa)

May-October

A bulbous perennial herb, formerly widely grown as an ornamental and readily becoming naturalised in gardens and on waste ground. It spreads rapidly by easily detached bulblets that are resistant to all but the strongest herbicides, and in places it has become an almost ineradicable weed. Lowland.

Flower in September

Flowers in September

Foliage in September

Foliage in September

Form in September

Pale Oxalis

(Pale Pink-sorrel)

Oxalis incarnata

June-August

A perennial bulbous herb with annual erect branching stems. It is cultivated in gardens, occasionally escaping to nearby disturbed, shaded sites, hedge banks, stone walls and pavement cracks. It does not set seed, but spreads by bulblets produced in the axils of the aerial stems. Lowland.

Pink Oxalis

(Pink Wood Sorrel, Windowbox Woodsorrel)

Oxalis floribunda

(Oxalis rubra, Oxalis crassipes)

May-September

Wasteland (in bushy and waste places)

Form in October

Flower in October

Flowers

Foliage in October

Foliage

Sleeping Beauty

(Procumbent Yellow-sorrel)

Same as Small Sleeping Beauty below

Oxalis corniculata

(Oxalis corniculata purpurea)

May-September

A scrambling annual or short-lived perennial herb which is often a pernicious weed of cultivated land, disturbed areas and paths. It is self-compatible and the seeds are explosively ejected up to two metres from the capsules. Its brittle stems readily root at the nodes. Lowland.

Flower from Borough Green on 21 September

Flowers on 18 August

Foliage from Rainham in August

Foliage from Rochester in Kent on 12 July

Form from Rainham in August

Foliage from Rainham in July

Form on 18 August

The name Oxalis is derived from a Greek word for sour, referring to the sour taste of the leaves.

Slender Yellow Woodsorrel

(Southern Yellow Wood-sorrel)

Oxalis dillenii

(Oxalis prostrata, Oxalis stricta, Oxalis rupestris)

May-November

An erect annual of cultivated ground, disturbed areas and paths, in shaded or semi-shaded situations. It spreads by seed or occasionally by underground rhizomes. Seed is freely set by self-pollination, and forcibly ejected from the capsules over a distance of up to two metres. Lowland.

Flower in September

Form in September

Juvenile Fruits in September

Juvenile Fruit in September

Foliage in September

Fruit in September

Small Sleeping Beauty

(Least Yellow Sorrel, Creeping Lady's-Sorrel, Creeping Oxalis, Creeping Wood-Sorrel)

Same as Sleeping Beauty above

Oxalis corniculata var. microphylla

(Oxalis corniculata, Oxalis corniculata var. repens)

June-September

Arable land and waste places, it is a common garden weed where it tends to become especially troublesome in pots of plants growing in greenhouses etc. The leaves are used as an antidote to poisoning by the seeds of Datura spp, arsenic and mercury. The leaf juice is applied to insect bites, burns and skin eruptions. It has an antibacterial activity.

Flower

Flower in June

Flower from Rochester in August

Form in June

Flowers in July

Form from Rochester in Kent in August

Foliage

Foliage

Upright Oxalis

Oxalis europaea

(Oxalis stricta roots)

May-September

An erect annual of cultivated ground, disturbed areas and paths, in shaded or semi-shaded situations. It spreads by seed or occasionally by underground rhizomes. Seed is freely set by self-pollination, and forcibly ejected from the capsules over a distance of up to two metres. Lowland.

Wood-Sorrel

(European Wood-sorrel)

Oxalis acetosella

April-May

A perennial creeping herb of woodland, hedgerows, banks, and other moist, usually shaded, habitats; also in rough montane grassland, grikes in limestone pavement, Vaccinium communities, bryophyte-rich block screes, and rock ledges. It grows on both calcareous and non-calcareous soils, though only those which are moisture-retentive. It is one of the few species able to survive the deep shade of conifer plantations. 0-1160 m (Ben Lawers, Mid Perth).

Flowers from Parsonage Wood on 23 April

Flower from High Force in Westmoreland on 31 May

Flower from Challock on 16 April

Form of this plant living in the crux between a branch and the trunk in May

Flowers from High Force in June

Form in April

Foliage from Parsonage Wood on 23 April

Flower from Scords Wood on 20 April

Seed-head at Kemsing on 4 October