Oxalis Oregana

Day 163: I hope my readers will bear with me as my ability to find natural-history subject matter of a visual nature is further curtailed by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee's "stay at home" order which, unsurprisingly, no one in this community seems to be obeying except me. Traffic is flowing past my house in both directions: toward the Park and toward the grocery stores. Meanwhile, I've moved my exercise equipment into the back bedroom and have installed daylight LEDs in both floor lamps in order to have enough light to compensate for the need to have one curtain partially closed to obscure the back neighbour's large 2020 presidential campaign banner. Being denied hikes into the deeper recesses of Nature was bad enough without THAT cropping up in my field of view. Enough, Crow. Take a deep breath, focus your mind and talk about Oxalis. They came here for science, the few who show evidence of having brains.

Although the leaves of Oxalis oregana (aka Redwood Sorrel) resemble those of clover, the plants are not related. Oxalis is a member of its own Family (in the taxonomic sense), the Oxalidaceae (Wood Sorrels). The species occurs only in the western United States and British Columbia. Its three heart-shaped, lightly hairy leaflets are photo-sensitive, drooping downward when light levels are high but returning to a more flattened state when shaded. In certain exposures where shade and sunlight alternate by the minute, the change in position occurs quickly enough to be observable by eye. The flowers may be almost entirely white, or may be striped with pink or purple as they are in the photo. The plants associate with Douglas-fir in Washington as well as with the redwoods which give them their common name. Although the leaves were eaten by native peoples, the plant is not considered edible due to the presence of oxalic acid in the tissues.