Anyway, back to a much colder day in February.
"What's the clovery thing?" Megan asked me as we poked gingerly through the fluffy fennel.
I confessed I didn't know, but pointed out, "there's more there ... and there ... oh, God, if this is really a hardy clover, we'll never kill it."
We had to wait for flowers at the end of March in order to positively identify it, during which time we went on calling it "clovery thing" -- but it's not clover, and we'll still probably never kill it. But at least that's something we're happy about now. In fact, it's a welcome addition to this old Southern garden's herb list.
The clover-like perennial mounder with tender, three-lobed green leaves turned out to be a wood sorrel -- either pink wood sorrel, Oxalis articulata, or violet wood sorrel, Oxalis violaceae. Obviously we'd prefer the latter, as that garden-friendly shamrock relative is a native forb beloved of bees and other pollinators, but we should be so lucky. However, judging by the stubby petals and darker centers of the flowers, it's not Florida's plaguing invasive creeping northward, so we're letting it be either way.
Pink wood sorrel at Woodburn, late April.
At Woodburn, the Pinckney, Adger, and Smythe families might have used their wood sorrel in teas to soothe a mild fever. Slaves and tenant farmers might have plucked a few stems when going to work in the hot sun -- the lemon-bitters flavor of the crunchy edible herb quenches thirst, so it would have tided them over between drinks of water.
Click below for more about the cultivation and cultural uses of wood sorrel, as well as links to wood sorrel recipes both modern and Victorian, plus an embarrassing picture of the blogger!
Cultivation
Wood sorrel is a beautiful little plant in the winter garden, providing neat little mounds of fresh green leaves. It's perennial, at least here in zone 7b/8a (there's some debate as to which USDA planting zone upstate South Carolina actually belongs to now); its PlantFiles page indicates that is should be fine up to zone 6. When it blooms in spring, the flowers close at dusk and before storms, then open again in the morning, making it a perfect all-day addition for a Victorian-style formal flower garden's botanical clock. Woodburn's wood sorrels have been covered in cheery five-petaled flowers since March and show no sign of stopping.
This herb prefers well-drained soil, which is probably why it's thriving so at the top (uphill) edge of the herb garden. It'll take some filtered shade; it's actually filled in underneath our enormous boxwood at one side.
It has a single taproot below its mounding leaves, and seems to take transplanting well if all of the taproot and a bit of the soil are brought along. Originally, in quadrant III of the herb garden (the corner nearest the main house, where the Herb Garden sign is), both sage and wood sorrel were planted according to a general plan of "let's put two at the edge and a third one ... oh, somewhere, any old where in this quadrant." I'm happy to report that both survived being moved; the wood sorrel mound that was off in the center had a brief histrionic fit a day after I dug it up, all of its leaves going limp, and was about a week later to flower than its brethren, but six weeks later you can no longer tell which one it was.
Cultural and Medicinal Uses
As I mentioned above, wood sorrel was (and is) used for fevers, as a diuretic, and to quench thirst -- although modern herbalists are more careful with it, since it contains oxalic acid, which can seriously complicate gout. The small, raw bulbs could be used to expel worms. It's still fantastic for mouth wounds, from toothache to gingivitis to canker sores -- just pick and chew (assuming this wins the approval of your doctor or licensed herbalist).
It can be used in salads, both as a fresh, sour green and to remove the need for vinegar in salad dressings -- simply adding some wood sorrel leaves and using a lightly flavored oil is said to be enough to render the salad quite flavorful.
Mixing a decoction of the leaves with caustic potash results in sal acetosella -- sorrel salt or salts of lemon. Potash would have been easy to obtain -- a lot of Southern settlers in the 18th century made their own lye and its product, potash, from the ashes produced by burning hardwood trees cleared from their land, although New York and Ohio had cornered the lucrative British market by the 1840s. Salts of sorrel might have been used as an alternative to sal volatile (smelling salts), but the most common 19th-century usage was for lifting ink-stains from fabric, e.g., from a gentleman's shirt cuffs if he was careless about sanding and blotting while he updated the farm ledger (source).
Useful Links and Goodies
The book where I got the Salts of Sorrel recipe above can be purchased on Amazon: New receipts for cooking ([c1854])
is available on Kindle, Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt Book: A Useful Guide For Large And Small Families (1850)
is a paperback edition of a slightly later book of hers.Wild Edible has recipe for a wood sorrel and onion tart that looks phenomenal, while Herbs: Treat and Taste offers up a summery wood sorrel and onion cream soup that I may have to try this week.
You can buy bare-root plants of an attractive wood sorrel species native to much of the Eastern U.S. from this reliable supplier: Violet wood sorrel from Prairie Moon.
And finally, as promised:
I was reading about Oxalis pes-caprae, or Bermuda buttercup, the invasive yellow species of wood sorrel that has spread through much of Southern California, when I realized I had actually eaten the stuff. In my childhood, as now, my grandparents had a carpet of the little yellow blooms around their cacti. We used to crunch the stems while we chased each other around the swimming pool, and I can confirm that they make an interestingly sour treat. (Please, if you want the treat, plant the variety above; natives are hardy and add wildlife value, but this stuff has to be napalmed from orbit to get rid of it.)
Here is the embarrassing picture:
That's a fifteen-year-old me up in Yosemite for the 2005 California Envirothon competition, wearing a crown of Bermuda buttercups made by my friend Guy and trying to persuade another teammate, Casey, not to snap a picture of my new accessory. If I recall correctly, Guy was our plants expert, so he may have known it was wildly invasive and been justifiably trying to kill it; I'm not sure, since this was a couple of months before I suddently got into noxious weeds.
And before someone asks: Yes, all these years later, I still own the dorky fleece vest. Not that it sees much use here in the South.
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