Re: botanical babble
Barry Garcia wrote:
(snip) FOr me, the oxalis dies out by may and doesnt show up until we
get steady rainfall. Its actually fairly well behaved in my yard.
Actually its confined to the
> side yard ( about 4 x 20 ft. ) and about a 3 X 10 ft strip in my front
> yard. I usually keep it out of the sand "stream bed" bye cutting it
> back with a hoe. It's never gotten farther than that in the five years
> its shown up in my yard (the WHOLE front yard used to be Kikuyu grass
> (Pennesetum clandestinum (i think thats it) five years ago...), so that kept it confined to the side yard..
> Here in Marina, as a kid we used to call the Oxalis "sour grass"
> because of the sour juice in the stem. We used to munch on the flower
> stems whenever they popped up in the winter. Wel also thought the
> flowers were buttercups too. A teacher told us that if you put a butter cup under your chin on a sunny day, the yellow would be reflected, and thats just what happened when we did it with the oxalis flowers. So thats why we thought it was a butter cup!
We have plain sand here, too, Barry, and the oxalis dies down over the
summer (in November) - but boy, does it come back when it rains!The kids
chew the stems, too - but I've never taken to it; came to it too late
maybe.
Congratulations if you succeeded in getting rid of the kikuyu.
As for "buttercups" I think I've heard it called that here, too -
anything with a yellow flower seems to get that tag from people who have
never seen a *real* Buttercup.
Beverly
--
Beverly Elischer
Perth, Western Australia
Ph. +61 8 9386 5244
