Florapass
English
Upright Yellow-Sorrel

Upright Yellow-Sorrel

Oxalis stricta

Identify the Upright Yellow-Sorrel from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

How common: Common

Alien species

Upright Yellow-Sorrel is a small perennial wood-sorrel with an upright habit and clover-like leaves. Native to North America and East Asia, it is also commonly encountered in gardens and other disturbed places across many temperate regions. It blooms from midsummer into early autumn, bearing small, pale yellow, five-petaled flowers followed by five-angled seed capsules.

Did you know?

  • A dark red-leaved ornamental cultivar, ‘Rufa’, is often grown in gardens.
  • Like many wood-sorrels, its leaflets fold at night or in strong sun.

About the species

Identification

A perennial herb with a slender underground stem and upright, branching shoots typically 10–30 cm tall. Leaves are long-petioled and arise in a spiral, each leaf divided into three triangular-obovate leaflets with broadly flattened tips, giving a clover-like look. Flowers are pale yellow, radially symmetrical, with five petals, borne in small clusters of 2–5; flowering occurs in summer into early autumn. Fruits are erect, five-angled capsules about 10–15 mm long; the upright habit, few-flowered clusters, and sharply five-angled pods help distinguish it from similar yellow sorrels.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jul–Sep

About the habitat

Occurs in light, disturbed soils of gardens, lawns, pathsides, fields, and waste ground, and can also appear on open woodland edges and clearings. It tolerates sun to partial shade and thrives where soil is frequently loosened or trampled.

Sources

Photo: Alex Stach, CC BY 4.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/6320325557

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pystyk%C3%A4enkaali

See also