Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Oxalis corniculata

Common name

Creeping oxalis, Yellow wood sorrel

Family

Oxalidaceae

Where found

Paddocks, roadsides, gardens, and other disturbed areas. Widespread.

Notes

Introduced herb to 0.3 m tall, sometimes creeping. Stems usually freely rooting at the nodes, almost hairless to densely hairy with spreading hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), green, almost glaucous, or bronze-purple to maroon. Taproot, if developed, not stout and woody. Bulbils absent. Leaves alternating up the stems, each with 3 leaflets 0.4-2 cm long, 2.4-25 mm wide, hairless to hairy, margins often hairy, 2-lobed, the lobe tips rounded and 3–15 mm apart. Obvious square-topped stipules to 2–3 mm long, margins fringed. Flowers with 5 yellow petals, each 6-7 mm long. Flowers in clusters of 1-6 flowers. Flowers most of the year. Seed cases long and usually slender-cylindrical, 8–16 mm long, 1.5–3 mm in diameter; outer surface with hairs pointing down (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see).

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Oxalis~corniculata  (accessed 29 January, 2021)