Wood sorrel
Latin name: Oxalis acetosella
Height: Up to 10cm
Where: Mostly in deciduous woodland, for example on Inchcailloch
When: Flowers late April and May
Wood sorrel isn’t actually related to any of the sorrel family, but nibble one of its shamrock-shaped leaves and you’ll understand its name. It has the same green-apple sharpness as its namesake, perhaps also leading to one of its Gaelic names, ‘greim saighdeir’, meaning ‘soldier’s mouthful’.
You will see its delicate pink-veined white flowers in April and May, often in more shady patches of woodland away from the blue and white carpets of bluebells and wood anemones. Although you most often find it in woods it sometimes appears on mountain sides, perhaps a sign that there may once have been a wooded hillside there.
