Yellow Wood-sorrel—Oxalis corniculata.
Redwood Sorrel—O. Oregana.
GERANIUM FAMILY. Geraniaceae.
Not a large family, herbs, of temperate regions; leaves lobed or compound, usually with stipules; flowers perfect; sepals and petals usually five and stamens five or ten; ovary superior; fruit a capsule.
There are many kinds of Geranium; stems with swollen joints; stipules papery; five glands on the receptacle, alternating with the petals; stamens ten, five long and five short, filaments united at base; ovary with a beak formed by the five-cleft style, and becoming a capsule, which splits open elastically, the style-divisions becoming tails on the seeds. The Greek name means "crane," in allusion to the long beak of the capsule, and these plants are often called Crane's-bill. Cultivated Geraniums are Pelargoniums, from South Africa.
Wild Geranium
Gerànium incìsum
Pink
Spring, summer
West
In the Sierra woods, and along Yosemite roadsides, in summer we see the purplish-pink blossoms and nodding buds of this attractive plant, resembling the Wild Geranium of the East, growing from thick, perennial roots, with hairy, branching stems, from one to two feet high. The hairy leaves, with three or five, toothed lobes, are fragrant like cultivated geraniums; the flowers, over an inch across, are hairy inside, the petals veined with magenta. They are occasionally white and the plants vary in size and hairiness. G. furcàtum, of the Grand Canyon, has magenta petals, which turn back more.
Wild Geranium
Gerànium Fremóntii
Pink
Spring, summer
Southwest, and Utah, Ida., Col., New Mex.
This has similar flowers, but is a finer plant, forming large, thrifty-looking clumps, one or two feet across, of slightly thickish leaves, dark green on the upper side and paler, with prominent veins, on the under, the root-leaves with about seven, main divisions, the stem-leaves three- to five-cleft, each clump of leaves with several tall, slightly downy flower-stalks springing from it. The calyxes and buds are downy and the flowers bright pink or rose-purple, delicately veined. This grows in somewhat moist ground, at the edges of fields and woody roadsides and on mountain slopes, and is perhaps the handsomest of its clan.
