Oxalis
Habit | herbaceous
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Lifespan: | ⌛ | perennial, annual |
Origin: | ✈ | Worldwide |
Oxalis > |
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Oxalis (pronounced /ˈɒksəlɪs/)[1] is by far the largest genus in the wood-sorrel family Oxalidaceae: of the approximately 900 known species in the Oxalidaceae, 800 belong here. The genus occurs throughout most of the world.
Includes species are known as wood-sorrels, yellow-sorrels, pink-sorrels, false shamrocks, and "sourgrasses".
These plants are annual or perennial. The leaves are divided into three to ten or more obovate and top notched leaflets, arranged palmately with all the leaflets of roughly equal size. The majority of species have three leaflets; in these species, the leaves are superficially similar to those of some clovers.
The flowers have five petals, which are usually fused at the base, and ten stamens. The petal color varies from white to pink, red or yellow; anthocyanins and xanthophylls may be present or absent but are generally not both present together in significant quantities, meaning that few wood-sorrels have bright orange flowers. The fruit is a small capsule containing several seeds. The roots are often tuberous and succulent, and several species also reproduce vegetatively by production of bulbils, which detach to produce new plants.
Some species – notably Bermuda-buttercup (O. pes-caprae) and creeping woodsorrel (O. corniculata) – are pernicious invasive weeds when escaping from cultivation outside their native ranges; the ability of most wood-sorrels to store reserve energy in their tubers makes them quite resistant to most weed control techniques.
ExpandRead about Oxalis in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Cultivation
Propagation
Pests and diseases
Varieties
Selected species:
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Oxalis_articulata_rubra0.jpg/300px-Oxalis_articulata_rubra0.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Oxalis_gigantea_1.jpg/300px-Oxalis_gigantea_1.jpg)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Lyc_oviposit.jpg/300px-Lyc_oviposit.jpg)
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Gallery
References
- ↑ Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995:606–607
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Oxalis. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
- Oxalis QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)