Wood Sorrel

Oxalidales

Oxalidaceae (Wood Sorrel)

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White with lilac veins, 5 petals and long-stalked.

Roughly round, 5 sided, furrowed and pale green capsule.

Evergreen. Long-stalked, pale green leaves in a basal rosette. The leaves are divided into 3 leaflets, each leaflet being heart-shaped with a notch cut in the end. The leaves are occasionally purplish beneath.

10cm tall.

The leaves are edible, raw or cooked. They contain oxalic acid which gives them their apple-like flavour. They can be added to salads and soups. The flowers can be eaten raw too. This plant is mildly toxic but can be eaten in small quantities without doing you any harm.
Never consume a wild plant unless you are 100% certain that it is safe to eat and you know that you have identified it correctly.

Bird's Bread-and-Cheese, Bread-and-Cheese, Butter and Eggs, Candle-of-the-Woods, Common Wood Sorrel, Cuckoo Bread, Cuckoo Meat, Cuckoo Sorrel, Cuckooflower, Cuckoo's Bread-and-Cheese, Cups and Saucers, Fairy Bells, False Shamrock, Fox's Meat, French Sorrel, God Almighty's Bread-and-Cheese, Good Luck, Gowk Meat, Granny's Sour Grass, Green Sauce, Green Sob, Hallelujah, Hearts, King Finger, Lady's Clover, Laverocks, Little Gentle One, Marsh Clover, Salt Cellar, Shamrock, Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Clover, Sleeping Molly, Sour Dab, Sour Shamrock, Sourgrass, Sow Trefoil, St Cecilia's Flower, St Patrick's Cross, Stabwort, Stickwort, Stubwort, Three-leaved Grass, White Sorrel, White Wood Sorrel, Whitsun Flower, Wild Shamrock, Wood Ash, Wood Sour, Wood Sower.

Grassland, hedgerows, mountains, swamps, woodland.