Americanized Creeping Wood Sorrel Gardens: Ground Cover, Natural Treat

Summary: Pea, pokeweed and wood sorrel family weeds turn Americanized creeping wood sorrel gardens into ground cover and treat fabrics, metals and soils naturally.

creeping wood sorrel's flowers, leaves and stems; Auwahi Forest, southeastern Maui; Feb. 22, 2003: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Americanized creeping wood sorrel gardens acclimate native and non-native members of the Oxalidaceae family of wood sorrel herbs to beds, conservatories, containers, courtyards and roadsides away from farm animals and food crops.

Oxalic acid, written chemically as (COOH)2, brings about oxalate poisoning in sheep and explosive capsules bring on seed takeovers in bean, coffee, corn and potato fields. Threatened crop yields, ecosystem well-being, human health and species diversity convince North American federal, provincial, state or territorial governments to call native or non-native plants weeds. No legislation in Canada, Mexico or the United States disdains native yellow wood sorrel or non-native creeping wood sorrel and similar-looking black medic and white clover.

Ground cover on barren, compacted, disturbed, unbalanced soils and oxalic acid for bleaching, dyeing and printing fabrics and polishing metals encourage tolerating creeping wood sorrel's weediness.

The seedling's oval to oblong, 0.09-inch- (2.3-millimeter-) long, 0.04-inch- (1-millimeter-) wide cotyledons function as embryonic foliage on creeping wood sorrel, scientifically named Oxalis corniculata (sour-tasting, horn-like).

Creeping wood sorrel gets the three heart-shaped leaflets that go missing from otherwise similar-looking black medic and white clover in its first alternate-arranged, compound leaf stage. The fourth leaf stage has signature hairy margins and long stalks, called petioles, while maturity holds purple-green colors, small paired membranes, called stipules, and sour tastes. Leaflets, 0.39 to 0.79 inches (1 to 2 centimeters) across, incline outward and upward from gray-green, prostrate to straight stems whose nodal attachments induce rooting procedures.

The axil angles of leaves and stems juggle one- to four-flowered inflorescences, called cymes, with oldest flowers at their tips, in Americanized creeping wood sorrel gardens.

Perfect, regular, yellow flowers 0.16 to 0.39 inches (4 to 10 millimeters) across keep together one pistil, five petals, five sepals and 10 to 15 stamens.

The 0.14- to 0.28-inch- (3.5- to 7-millimeter-) long sepals look daintier than the 0.28- to 0.43-inch- (7- to 11-millimeter-) long petals on March- to October-blooming cymes. Flowering stages on mature, 3.94- to 19.68-inch- (10- to 50-centimeter-) tall creeping wood sorrel, also called creeping lady's sorrel and sour clover, make way for fruit. Brown, elliptical seeds nudge explosively from cylindrical, hairy, many-seeded, 0.47- to 0.98-inch- (1.2- to 2.5-centimeter-) long fruits called capsules to distances 6.56 feet (2 meters) away.

Creeping wood sorrel, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), offers four-year in-soil viabilities to seeds in Americanized creeping wood sorrel gardens.

Sunlit temperatures around 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) provoke germination of dull brown, elliptical, 0.04- to 0.06-inch- (1- to 1.4-millimeter-) long, 0.04-inch- (1-millimeter-) wide seeds.

This one of 950 species under the eight Oxalidaceae genera queues seeds, with two to three faint, and nine distinct, cross ridges, for four-year in-soil viabilities. It quells criticisms of cropland invasions, land takeovers and poisoned livestock with such advantages as convenient germination and viability, ground reflection loss reduction and natural products. Creeping wood sorrel reveals in its global impact practical realization of natural products and in its worldwide distribution bio-geographical preferences for the subtropics and the tropics. Creeping wood sorrel's similarities to related yellow wood sorrel and to unrelated black medic and white clover serve up subjects for backyard study and ornamental arrangements.

Americanized creeping wood sorrel gardens tumble weedy members of the pea, pokeweed and wood sorrel families into ground covers that treat nitrogen and tweak natural products.

closeup of creeping wood sorrel's yellow flower; South Knoxville, eastern Tennessee; April 10, 2011: Jay Sturner, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

creeping wood sorrel's flowers, leaves and stems; Auwahi Forest, southeastern Maui; Feb. 22, 2003: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/starr-environmental/24252339279

closeup of creeping wood sorrel's yellow flower; South Knoxville, eastern Tennessee; April 10, 2011: Jay Sturner, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/50352333@N06/5681077054/

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "11. Oxalis corniculata." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 435. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358454

Modzelevich, Martha. "Oxalis corniculata, Yellow woodsorrel, Hebrew: חמציץ קטן; Arabic: فصيلة ابرة الراعي." Flowers in Israel.
Available @ http://www.flowersinisrael.com/Oxaliscorniculata_page.htm

"Oxalis corniculata L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/23700014

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.