Flora of the Hawaiian Islands
Dicotyledon Literature for Oxalis corniculata
Wagner et al., 1990, 1999; Lorence & Wagner, 2020.
   Oxalidaceae -- The Wood Sorrel Family Bibliography
      Oxalis corniculata

Common name(s): `ihi, wood sorrel, `ihi `ai, `ihi `awa, `ihi maka `ula, `ihi makole, yellow wood sorrel
General Information
DistributionCosmopolitan species of unknown origin.In the Hawaiian Islands, a Polynesian introduction on Kure, Midway, Ni`ihau, Kaua`i, O`ahu, Moloka`i, Lana`i, Maui, Kaho`olawe, Hawai`i.
















Habit
Acaulescent, perennial herb, primary root sometimes becoming thickened and fleshy or woody; stems several from the main root, ascending to prostrate creeping, rooting at the nodes, strigillose to sometimes also villous.
Leaves
Leaves scattered, trifoliolate, petiolate; leaflets broadly obcordate to elliptic-obcordate, lobes rounded, 0.4‒2(‒2.5) cm long, 0.5‒2(‒2.5) cm wide, glabrous to sparsely or moderately villous, especially on margin and abaxial surface; petiole 1‒6(‒10) cm long; stipules inconspicuous, rarely to 3 mm long.
Flowers
Inflorescences 1‒5(‒8)-flowered, usually an umbellate cyme, heterostylous; bracts 2 to several. Flowers with lanceolate sepals, 2‒6 mm long, sparsely strigillose, sometimes with multicellular hairs; petals yellow, spatulate, 4‒10 mm long, apex rounded to emarginate; ovules (1‒)5‒11 per locule, in 1 row.
Fruit
Fruit cylindrical or sometimes narrowly ellipsoid, 9‒20(‒24) mm long, sparsely to densely pubescent with multicellular hairs.
Seeds
Seeds brown, compressed ovoid, ca. 1 mm long, surface with 7‒10 transverse ridges.
Chromosomes
2n = 24, 28, 44, 48.
Contributor
Nancy Khan