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Oxalis luteola Jacq. Oxal (1794) 103, t. 65 Salter #43
O. luteola Jacq., var marginata Sond
O. fallax Jacq.
O. macrogonya Jacq.
O. balsamifera E. Mey. Ex Sond
O. pulchella Jacq., var. glabrata Sond.
Stemless, 5-8cm high.
Bulb: more or less ovoid, acute, usually 2-3cm long : tunics dark brown, gummy.
Rhizome: 5-15cm long, with submembranaceous semiamplexicaul scales.
Leaves: few or many : petioles usually 2-4cm long densely or sparsely villoso-pubescent or glabrescent : leaflets 3, cuneate-rotund or cuneate-obovate, usually emarginate, sometimes attenuate at the base, the medial 0.6-1.1cm long, 0.7-1.3cm broad, the lateral oblique, a little smaller, glabrous or pubescent above and beneath, often narrowly cartiliginous-margined, usually ciliate sometimes with both patent and introrse hairs, rather conspicuously veined, often purplish, and in some specimens minutely nigropunctate beneath.
Peduncles: 1-flowered., up to 8cm long, villose, with 2 minute filiform bracts at an articulation slightly above the middle.
Sepals: broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, usually obtuse, 4-6mm long, often with 2 small apical calli.
Corolla: 1.6-3.3cm long, yellow, with a rather narrowly funnel- shaped tube : laminae of the petals very broadly cuneate-obovate, subtruncate, rather longer than the narrow claw.
Filaments: the shorter 2-3.5mm, the longer 3.5-6.5mm long, glabrous or minutely glandular-pilose, with long acute teeth.
Ovary: glabrous or sparsely pubescent and with small orange calli on the upper part, the chambers 8-9 ovuled : styles densely glandular-pilose. Seeds endospermous. Plants occur rarely with double flowers
Flowers: May-July.
The gummy adnate bulb tunics by which Sonder distinguished the species O. balsamifera, do not constitute a specific difference, being rather a matter of the age of the bulb. In younger bulbs, which are always viscous, the outer tunics are sometimes soft and separable after drying, but the mature bulbs become very hard and are usually coated with adhering particles of sand. The bulb in the type (Drege, Pietersfontein) in Herb. Sond. is by no means large for this species. In the plants from the more northern areas the leaflets are usually more glaucous above, more copiously nigro-punctate beneath and the bulbs in general are very large, but the transition is gradual and I can find no constant varietal difference.
The characters by which var. marginata Sond. has been distinguished, viz. the frequency of larger petals with a purple external border, is of no constant varietal difference.
Var. minor Salter. This dwarf variety was growing luxuriantly and in great abundance in sandy arable land in the type locality (5 miles south of 'The Rest' (Grey's Pass)) and is evidently not a starved form. Schltr. 7931, distributed with the M.S. name of O. minima Sond., was not only attributed to that species by the author of Pflrch-Ox., but was obviously partly used in his description of that species. The bulb is entirely different.