Oxalis corniculata

Creeping wood sorrel

Family: Oxalidaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Creeping wood sorrel is a naturalized perennial herb found in various California regions including the northern Coast Ranges, San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, southern California, and Peninsular Ranges, commonly occurring in disturbed areas at elevations generally below 1,900 meters. Flowering throughout the year, this plant produces small yellow flowers often featuring distinctive red spots near the base of the petals. Growing with slender stems less than 50 centimeters long that root at the nodes and have both appressed and spreading hairs, it spreads readily in disturbed landscapes. Its leaves are composed of three delicate green leaflets less than 2 centimeters long, with ciliate edges and sparse appressed hairs on the undersides. The plant produces elongated cylindrical fruits 6 to 25 millimeters long with simple, short, generally appressed hairs.

Habitat: Disturbed areas

Bloom period: +- all year

Elevation: generally < 1900 m

Bioregions: NCoRO, n&ampc SNF, GV, CCo, SnFrB, SCo, PR, expected elsewhere

California counties: Los Angeles, Amador, Tulare, Fresno, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Bernardino, Orange, Butte, Riverside, Nevada, Humboldt, Marin, Alameda, San Mateo, San Francisco, Inyo, Santa Clara, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, Monterey, El Dorado, Sacramento, Solano, Contra Costa, Mendocino, Stanislaus, Yolo, Del Norte, Sonoma, Tuolumne, Yuba, San Joaquin, Napa, Mariposa

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.