Oxalis incarnata

Crimson wood-sorrel, Crimson Wood-Sorrel

Family: Oxalidaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Crimson wood-sorrel is a naturalized perennial herb found in northern Coast and San Francisco Bay Area bioregions in shady woodland habitats at elevations below 400 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces white to pale pink flowers up to 2 centimeters long with distinctive sepals featuring orange tubercle tips. Growing with slender, erect stems up to 30 centimeters tall that are branched and glabrous, the plant develops axillary bulblets in stem joints. Its leaves form whirl-like clusters of fewer than 10, with petioles 2 to 7 centimeters long and small leaflets less than 1.5 centimeters in size. The plant grows from a slender rhizome with pale brown bulbs less than 2 centimeters long and distinctively beaked at the base.

Habitat: Shady woodland

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: < 400 m

Bioregions: NCo, SnFrB

California counties: Santa Cruz, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Humboldt, Napa, San Luis Obispo, Marin, Monterey

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