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Montana Field Guide

Montana Field Guides

Creeping Wood-sorrel - Oxalis corniculata
Other Names:  Procumbent Yellow Sorrel, Sleeping Beauty

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Non-native Species

Global Rank: GNR
State Rank: SNA
C-value: 1


Agency Status
USFWS:
USFS:
BLM:


 

External Links

 
General Description
Stems prostrate to ascending at the tips, rooting at the nodes, 1–10 cm. Herbage purple-tinged, glabrate to strigose. Leaflets 1-3 cm long; stipules 1-4 mm long. Flowers: sepals 2-4 mm long; petals yellow, 4-8 mm long. Capsule pubescent 15-25 mm long; seed ridges not white (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Diagnostic Characteristics
Montana has 3 Oxalis species.

Creeping Wood-sorrel - Oxalis corniculata, exotic
*Habit: A tall, erect forb with short, simple rhizomes. Stems root at the leaf nodes.
*Hairs: Sparsely strigose to strigose-villous to villous, but without cross-walls; hairs not septate.
*Capsules: Sparsely covered with long, stiff (hirsute) hairs.

Common Yellow Wood-sorrel - Oxalis stricta, likely exotic
*Habit: A tall, erect forb with short, simple rhizomes. Stems do not root at the leaf nodes.
*Hairs: Multi-cellular with purple cross-walls (septate).
*Capsules: Sparsely covered with long, stiff (hirsute) hairs.

Dillen's Wood-sorrel - Oxalis dillenii, likely native
*Habit: A tall, erect forb with short, simple rhizomes. Stems do not root at the leaf nodes.
*Hairs: Long pointed (strigose to villous) but without cross-walls; hairs not septate.
*Capsules: Covered with stiff, straight, sharp, and appressed hairs (strigose).

Range Comments
Introduced worldwide; native to Europe (Lesica et al. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. BRIT Press. Fort Worth, TX).

Observations in Montana Natural Heritage Program Database
Number of Observations: 14

(Click on the following maps and charts to see full sized version) Map Help and Descriptions
Relative Density

Recency

 

(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)



Habitat

Ecology
POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus pensylvanicus (Colla and Dumesh 2010).

Management

References
  • Literature Cited AboveLegend:   View Online Publication
    • Colla, S.R. and S. Dumesh. 2010. The bumble bees of southern Ontario: notes on natural history and distribution. Journal of the Entomological Society of Ontario 141:39-68.
    • Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 2016. Flora of North America north of Mexico, Vol. 12. Magnoliophyta: Vitaceae to Garryaceae. Oxford University Press, Inc. New York.
    • Hitchcock, C.L. and A. Cronquist. 2018. Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual. Second Edition. Giblin, D.E., B.S. Legler, P.F. Zika, and R.G. Olmstead (eds). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press in Association with Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. 882 p.
    • Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 771 p.
  • Additional ReferencesLegend:   View Online Publication
    Do you know of a citation we're missing?
    • Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2022. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants, Second Edition. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 779 p.
  • Web Search Engines for Articles on "Creeping Wood-sorrel"
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Citation for data on this website:
Creeping Wood-sorrel — Oxalis corniculata.  Montana Field Guide.  .  Retrieved on , from