Oxalis debilis
Oxalis colorea
pink wood-sorrel, world-wide wood-sorrel
Small's wood-sorrel
usually 1–4 from base, mostly erect, 5–15(–25) cm, often becoming woody proximally, hirsute-pilose proximally, hairs curved, irregularly spreading or slightly deflexed, sometimes ± antrorse on peduncles and pedicels, nonseptate.
basal;
petiole 10–25 cm;
leaflets 3, green to yellowish green, rounded-obcordate, 17–40(–50) mm, lobed 1/6–1/5 length, lobes apically convex, adaxial surface hirsute, adaxial surface glabrous, oxalate deposits in dots at least around distal margins, often evenly over surface.
basal and cauline;
stipules oblong, margins narrowly flanged or without free portions, apical auricles absent;
petiole 2–7 cm;
leaflets 3, green, obcordate, 3–8 mm, lobed 1/5–1/3 length, surfaces usually sparsely strigose-hirsute, sometimes glabrate, oxalate deposits absent.
irregular cymes, (3–)8–14(–28)-flowered;
scapes 15–28 cm, moderately villous to glabrate.
usually umbelliform cymes, sometimes irregular cymes, (1–)2–4(–5)-flowered;
peduncles (3–)5–10(–15) cm.
strigose, hairs short, curved antrorsely.
mostly homostylous, infrequently tristylous;
sepal apices with 2 orange tubercles;
petals violet to lavender or rose purple, 10–16(–20) mm.
tristylous, well above level of leaves;
sepals 3.5–5 mm, apices without tubercles;
petals yellow to orange-yellow, usually with prominent, rarely faint, red lines proximally, very rarely lines absent, 9–15 mm.
not observed.
angular-cylindric, abruptly tapering to apex, 6–16 mm, glabrate to puberulent or sparsely hirsute-strigose, hairs short, sometimes only along angles or at apex.
brown, transverse ridges usually white.
= 14, 28, rarely 35.
Oxalis debilis
Oxalis colorea
Oxalis debilis appears to be spreading rapidly in the United States. The species produces numerous bulblets in a basal cluster and apparently also can spread laterally by production of bulblets at the tips of filiform roots or rhizomes; it can form large, dense colonies. A. Lourteig (1980) noted that plants of this species occasionally fruit but consistently reproduce through abundant bulblets. They apparently are seed-sterile in North America.
Oxalis corymbosa and O. debilis were differentiated by A. Lourteig (2000) primarily by the distribution of oxalate deposits in the leaf lamina. In O. debilis, the dotlike deposits are crowded along the margins and absent to distinctly less abundant elsewhere. In O. corymbosa, the deposits are evenly distributed over the whole lamina. In their native range in South America, the two expressions are broadly sympatric and intermediates are common, as they are in the flora area. Intermediates have the oxalate dots along the margins as well as over the whole surface or sometimes mostly on the outer third of the blades, near the margins. There is no justification for formal recognition of two entities.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Oxalis colorea is common in southeastern Alabama, Mississippi, and probably the northern half of Georgia; outliers apparently occur in a wider area toward the north and northeast. Scattered variants from widely scattered localities in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, from within the geographic range of O. colorea, have the habit and prominently red-lined petals of O. colorea; stem hairs are relatively long but are antrorsely oriented, as in O. florida.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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CalFlora
Flora NW
LA Plants
PNW Herbaria
WildflowerSearch
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USDA Plants Database
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