Rumex acetosa (Sour Dock, Garden Sorrel) - photos and description
Female flowers in above photo, are 1 mm in diameter, plant just
starting to flower
Male flower in above photo, are 4 mm in diameter, plant just
starting to flower
Stem leaf in above photo
Basal leaf in above photo, leaf is sagittate
Basal leaf in above photo, leaf is sagittate
General: Stout, erect perennial, inflorescence tall and narrow. Plants glabrous, stems are angled. Very short hairs on bottom of main stem and on the nerve on leaf undersides.
Flowers: Numerous, small, greenish in narrow, leafless, terminal panicles. Plants are dioecious. We measured female flowers at 1 mm diameter, and male flowers at 4 mm diameter.
Leaves: Leaves sagittate. Basal leaves with long petioles; stem leaves alternate, clasping the stem. Leaves reduced in size upwards. We measured a the blade of a lower leaf at 22 cm long by 7 cm wide, and an upper stem leaf at 9.5 cm long by 4 cm wide.
Height: We measured plants to 130 cm tall.
Habitat: Disturbed soil, ditches, waste ground.
Abundance: Fairly common.
Origin: Introduced.
How to identify this species of Rumex:
Plants dioecious, leaves sagittate (Taxonomic Reminder for
Recognizing Saskatchewan Plants). This is the
only Rumex species in SK with sagittate leaves.
Dioecious = flowers of only one sex on each plant; sagittate = shaped
like an arrowhead and with the basal lobes pointing downwards.
When and where photographed: Photos taken July 1st, along railroad track, boreal forest, about 350 km north of Regina, SK, and July 28th in a roadside ditch south of Chaplin, about 150 km west of our home in Regina, SK.