Transformational Gardening

Common Yellow Wood Sorrel (Sour Grass) (Oxalis stricta)

Kingdom	Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision	Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division	Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class	Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass	Rosidae
Order	Geraniales
Family	Oxalidaceae – Wood-Sorrel family
Genus	Oxalis L. – woodsorrel
Species	Oxalis stricta L. – common yellow oxalis

Leaves used for food (in salads, soup or sauces, for example). It has a sour taste.
Leaves, flowers, scapes, and bulbs used for food by children.
Drink: Infusion of fresh leaves bruised or macerated in cold water to make a lemonaide-like drink.

Reduces excess heat in the body. Infusion of leaves. Taken after water has cooled.
Useful for dealing with Summer heat. Leaves chewed to counteract loss of salt from perspiration or for satifying thirst.
Sorrels are famous for treating cancer, especially skin and breast cancer. Usually, the juice is pressed out of the sorrel stalks, leaves and flower (sometimes the juice is boiled down or evaporated to appropriate consistency) and is applied as a plaster on the cancer serveral times a day. In some cases the sorrel juice was mixed with red clover juice. If red clover juice is not mixed in the remedy, red clover tea can be ingested separately. In some cases, a thickener was added to the juice before applying the plaster (e.g., ashes of white oak bark, bear grease, etc.).
Leaves eaten or as an infusion act as a cooling diurectic and are useful for diseases of the kidneys, bladder and urethra.
Used for treating gastrointestinal distress (nausea, cramps).
Used for strengthening the stomach and appetite.
Sorrel juice gargled for healing mouth ulcers.
Used externally to treat swellings and inflammation by applied a cloth saturated with the juice.
Infusion of leaves used to treat fever.
Infusion of leaves used to prevent scurvy.

1		Native American Ethnobotany by Daniel E. Moerman Timber Press, c1998 ISBN: 0881924539
2		Medicinal and Other Uses of North American Plants: A Historical Survey with Special Reference to Eastern Indian Tribes by Charlotte Erichsen-Brown Dover Publications, c1989 ISBN: 048625951X

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