Native. Annual or perennial. Propagates by seeds and by woody rootstocks.

Time of bloom: April to September.

Seed-time: Late May to October.

Range: Nova Scotia to South Dakota, southward to Florida and Texas.

Habitat: In woods, cultivated ground, roadsides, waste places, even along the curbstones of city streets.

Stems tufted on woody rootstocks, or annual seedlings single, upright or sometimes decumbent, branching at the base, pale green, slender, covered with fine, appressed hairs. Leaves alternate, palmately three-parted, the leaflets about a half-inch long, bright green, smooth, deeply notched at the outer edge, sensitive, drooping against the stalk when plucked; this position they also take at night; petioles long, slender, also finely appressed-hairy. Flowers lemon-yellow, in open cymes of about two to four, on peduncles longer than the leaves, the pedicels slender and divergent, deflexed in fruit. Petals five, withering soon after opening; stamens ten, five long and five short, the filaments united at base; ovary five-celled; five separate styles with terminal stigmas. Capsules large, cylindric, short-pointed, often more than an inch long. Seeds very small, brown, flattened ovoid, covered with transverse wrinkles. (Fig. 180.)

Fig. 180. - Yellow Wood Sorrel (Oxalis stricta). X 1/3.

Means Of Control

Prevent seed production by deep hoe-cutting or hand-pulling before the first flowers mature.