Bulb large,—when full grown, measuring seven or eight inches in diameter, and weighing from eight to ten pounds; leaves rather large and numerous; skin very pale, or whitish-green; stem about six inches high. Hardy, very late, and chiefly employed for farm-purposes.
The variety should be cultivated in rows eighteen inches apart, and the plants should stand one foot apart in the rows.
OXALIS, TUBEROUS-ROOTED.—Law.
Tuberous-rooted Wood-sorrel. Oca. Oxalis crenata.
Of the Tuberous-rooted Oxalis, there are two varieties, as follow:—
White-Rooted.
Oca blanca.
Stem two feet in length, branching, prostrate or trailing, the ends of the shoots erect; leaves trifoliate, yellowish-green, the leaflets inversely heart-shaped; flowers rather large, yellow,—the petals crenate or notched on the borders, and striped at their base with purple. The seeds are matured only in long and very favorable seasons. In its native state, the plant is perennial; but is cultivated and treated, like the common potato, as an annual.
Cultivation.—The tubers should be started in a hot-bed in March, and transplanted to the open ground in May, or as soon as the occurrence of settled warm weather. They thrive best in dry, light, and medium fertile soils, in warm situations; and should be planted in hills two feet and a half apart, or in drills two feet and a half apart, setting the plants or tubers an inch and a half deep, and fifteen or eighteen inches apart in the drills; treating, in all respects, as potatoes.