Oxalis rubens Haw.
Perennial with primary root stout, occasionally to 5 mm wide. Stems decumbent to ± erect, to c. 50 cm tall, slender, weak, branched, not or slightly rooting at the nodes, glabrate to densely covered in ± antrorse, and often crisped hairs. Lvs 3-foliolate. Petiole usually 1-10 cm long, glabrate or covered with long patent to antrorse hairs; stipules generally < 1.5 mm long, completely adnate, sometimes reduced and merely simulating a dilated petiole base, usually ciliate. Petiolules very short. Lamina of leaflets equal, 3-13 × 4-18 mm, obcordate or broadly obcordate, with divergent lobes, and sinus generally > 1/2 lamina length, glabrous above, with hairs below mainly confined to midrib, ± ciliate; calli 0. Fls 1-3-(4); peduncle 1.5-7 cm and pedicels 0.3-2 cm long, longer at fruiting, both with ± antrorse, slightly curling hairs. Bracts 1-2.5 mm long, linear-subulate, densely hairy, situated at base of pedicels; calli 0. Sepals 3-5 mm long, oblong-lanceolate, oblong-elliptic to oblong-ovate, with antrorse, appressed hairs; calli 0. Petals 6-14 mm long, oblong-obovate to almost obdeltate, yellow, glabrous. Stamens at 2 levels, glabrous; filaments united towards base. Styles < to > longer stamens, densely hairy. Capsule 10-23 mm long excluding styles, cylindric, densely hairy; hairs short, retrorse or sometimes almost patent, sometimes glandular. Seeds 1.2-1.7 mm long, oblong-ellipsoid; transverse ridges 8-10, obtuse; grooves deep.
N.; S.; K., A.: widespread.
Also indigenous to Australia, and probably Lord Howe and Norfolk Is.
Lowland habitats, especially open coastal sites in grass, among rocks, sand, in waste places and disturbed roadside communities.
FL Sep-Feb.
This ill-defined, quite variable sp. is probably indigenous to N.Z. Usually the sprawling to erect stems which do not root at the nodes, the thick taproot, small stipules and the ± divergent leaflets distinguish O. rubens from the similar O. corniculata. Depauperate specimens may be difficult to separate from O. exilis, but usually the smaller fls and conic to cylindric-ovoid capsules with ± patent hairs distinguish O. exilis in N.Z. Plants referred here to O. rubens were mostly treated by Allan (1961) as O. stricta, but also as O. divergens Cunn., O. laciola Cunn., and O. corniculata var. crassifolia (Cunn.) Hook. f..
