ID Please

[Graham Catlow]

Hi,
I have seen this many times on my walks with Hugo, so a native to Scotland at least but haven't managed to find out what it is.
Does anyone know where I can get plants or seed from please as I'd like to create a trough of small Scottish natives.

Graham

[Steve Garvie]

I think it's Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) Graham.

[Maggi Young]

Oxalis acetosella, Graham - oops, Steve got there first!

[Graham Catlow]

Hi,
I didn't think it would take long for an ID but that was very quick.
Thank you both.

Graham

[Lesley Cox]

But if you are planning on introducing it into your garden Graham, you may as well kill yourself off right now as it will take over house and home in no time at all. It is a VICIOUS weed in cultivated circumstances. Even from a trough, it will get out and run rampant. It would only take a bird to spread a tiny bulblet or a seed to spring out. They DO spring about, flinging far and wide. And you can kill off the foliage with a weedkiller but the bulbs remain untouched. It will be the last thing - along with cockroaches - on earth, when the rest of us are long dead and gone.

[Graham Catlow]

Hi Lesley,
Many thanks for the warning. I was planning to put it in a small trough but will think carefully now before I do. Even the most determined dead heading may lapse on occasion and that may be the start of a problem.

Graham

[annew]

As Lesley says, pretty but ineradicable once you have it - it even followed us here from our last garden 20 years ago, and I still can't get rid of it!

[Martinr]

A word in its defence....it's natural in this garden, meanders up and down the brook banks, doesn't seem to be able to cope with heavy competition, it's pretty and, perhaps its greatest asset........the leaves are delicious

[Lesley Cox]

Yes you're right about the taste Martin. I remember sucking the juice from the stem ends when I was a child, though Oxalic acid is, I believe, poisonous. Perhaps one needs a lot of it. Well plenty of scope there, eh?

[Roma]

This is it in the wood behind my house under pine and sitka spruce.  It is also in the long grass where there is more light.  I was a bit too late to get the flowers.

[Anthony Darby]

It grows in the woods near our old house in Dunblane, but try as I might, I could not get it to grow in the garden. I think I chose a position that was too dry. It like damp, dappled shade.

[Sandy Leven]

I would try it in A trough. I live close to where Anthony used to live in Dunblane. I introduced wood sorrel as a wee plant and it has not spread on my garden. Even in the wild it seems to dislike competition.
Hi Anthony how is life down under?