Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Oxalis corniculata

Flowering plant. Photographer Don Wood, Oallen Road east of Oallen Ford

Carpet with flowers and seed cases. Photographer Jackie Miles

Line drawing in Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. Vol. 2: 432

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)