RUMEX Acetosella.
Sheep’s Sorrel.
HEXANDRIA Trigynia.
Gen. Char. Cal. 3-leaved. Petals 3 , closed. Seed l ,
superior, naked, triangular. Stigmas many-cleft.
Spec. Char. Flowers dioecious. Leaves lanceolate,
hastate. Valves without grains.
Syn. Rumex Acetosella. L in n . Sp. P I. 481. Sm. F I.
B rit. 396. Huds. 156. With. 358. H ull. 78 .
Relh. 145. Sibtfu 119. Abbot. 82. Curt. Lond.
fa s c . 5. t. 29.
Lapathum acetosum repens lanceolatum. Ran Syn. 143.
V e r y general on a gravelly soil, either in exposed pastures
or cultivated fields, where it flowers in June and July. In
the decline of the year its bright red leaves are conspicuous,
and give a glow to the herbage on many a barren heath and
common.
The whole plant is about half the size of Rumex Acetosa, v. 2.
t. 127. The roots are perennial, creeping, long and slender,
astringent. Herb acid, and likewise in some degree astringent.
Leaves lanceolate; the lower ones with a pair of
acute lobes at the base, spreading at nearly right angles.
Flowers reddish, in long, whorled, slender spikes; each
flower on a drooping capillary stalk, all barren on one root,
fertile on another. The valves, or segments of the calyx, are
entire, and all destitute of grains, in which last particular it
essentially differs from R. Acetosa.