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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Oxalidaceae
Oxalis

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 433 (1753).

Derivation: Greco-Latin name of some plant with acidic leaves.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: None

Description:
Herbs with a rhizomatous, bulbous or cormaceous rootstock; stem none, underground and at ground level reduced to a disc or creeping, decumbent or erect; leaves alternate, 2- to numerous-foliolate.

Stamens united towards the base, the outer series shorter than the inner; pistil varying in length on different plants; stigmas capitate.

Fruit a loculicidal capsule with 2-15 seeds in each cell, the valves persistent on the central axis.

Distribution:  More than 800 species all over the world, but mainly subtropical; the main centres are South America and South Africa. The exact number of species native to Australia is questionable. Provisionally the number is considered to be 6, 2 of them occurring in S.Aust. (Lourteig (1979) Phytologia 42:57-198 and J. Thompson (1982) A.S.B.S. Newsl. 32:4-6 deal with the S. Aust. species; Salter (1944) Jl S. Afi. Bot. suppl, vol 1 deals with the South African species). Oxalises.

Biology: Many species are grown as garden plants. Most of them reproduce mainly by bulbils. These bulbils are often large in number and almost indestructable. If these species become established, especially on disturbed land, they are often able to increase in number rapidly and become a pest.

Key to Species:
1. Neither stem nor rhizome developed; the bases of leaves and peduncles modified as bulb-scales
 
2. Bulbils sessile; leaflets obcordate, narrowly notched; inflorescence 8-15-flowered
O. debilis 6.
2. Bulbils on stolons
 
3. Stolons to 4 cm; leaflets cuneate-deltoid, widely incised to form divergent lobes; inflorescence c. 10-flowered
O. latifolia 10.
3. Stolons to 15 cm; leaflets obcordate, slightly notched; inflorescence 1-3-flowered
O. brasiliensis 3.
1. Stem or rhizome or both developed
 
4. Stem 0 or hardly exserted; leaves basal
 
5. Rhizome woody, thick, to 3 cm diam.; no bulbs formed
O. articulata 1.
5. Rhizome not woody, rhizome 0; bulbs formed
 
6. Flowers solitary
 
7. Leaflets 3; flowers pink or white
O. purpurea 13.
7. Leaflets 2-7; flowers yellow
O. flava 7.
6. Flowers in an umbel
 
8. Flowers pink
O. bowiei 2.
8. Flowers yellow
 
9. Petioles flattened, narrowly winged
O. compressa 4.
9. Petioles cylindrical
O. pes-caprae 12.
4. Stem developed; leaves cauline
 
10. Flowers pink or mauve
 
11. Stem hairy; leaves alternate along the upper part of the stem; petioles 1-2 mm
O. hirta 8.
11. Stem glabrous; leaves in pseudo-whorls at the top of the branches of the stem; petioles 10-50 mm
O. incarnata 9.
10. Flowers yellow
 
12. Peduncles to 40 cm; umbel 3-25-flowered; petals 15-25 mm long
O. pes-caprae 12.
12. Peduncles to 15 cm; umbel l-5-flowered; petals 6-15 mm long
 
13. Plants more than 8 cm high, with erect or ascending stems
 
14. Stem, peduncles and pedicels sparsely or densely covered with antrorse hairs; fruits usually extending above the leaves
O. perennans 11.
14. Stem with spreading or retrorse hairs
 
15. Stem densely covered with spreading or retrorse hairs; peduncles and pedicels with hairs curved in all directions; fruits usually extending above the leaves
O. radicosa 14.
15. Stem with spreading hairs; peduncles and pedicels with forward-directed hairs; fruits usually deflexed, not extending above the leaves
O. corniculata 5.
13. Low plants to 8 cm, with long creeping stems
 
16. Flowers solitary, inflorescences rarely 2-flowered; stem glabrous or sparsely hairy, most of the hairs forward-directed
O. perennans 11.
16. Peduncles with 2 or 3 flowers, rarely solitary flowers; stem glabrous or sparsely hairy, most of the hairs spreading
O. corniculata 5.

Author: Not yet available


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