Rumex hastatulus Baldwin

Heart Wing Sorrel; Heart Wing Dock; Wild Dock

Herb

Perennial

Vascular

Heart Wing Sorrel is a native herbaceous annual or short-lived perennial in the Buckwheat family (Polygonaceae). It occurs statewide in Alabama. Heart Wing Sorrel occurs on roadsides, in the margins of fields and pastures, on urban lots, and in other disturbed areas. It is an annual from a taproot. Stems are erect, 1-2 feet in height, usually branched above the middle, glabrous, and green or reddish brown in color. Leaves are basal and alternate along the stem, petiolate, obovate-oblong, ovate-lanceolate, oblong-lanceolate, or lanceolate in outline, glabrous, and with hastate bases. Flowers are produced in terminal panicles. Flowers are in whorls of 3-6. Heart Wing Sorrel is dioecious, with separate male and female plants. The perianth is composed of 6 greenish, reddish, or tan tepals. The inner tepals are larger and winged, becoming enlarged in fruit. The fruit is a dark brown achene. Heart Wing Sorrel is abundant in fallow fields in the late winter and early spring. The stems and leaves have a sour taste and are chewed by children who call it “Sour grass” or “Sour cane”. The plant contains oxalic acid which in large does causes stomach cramps and nausea and can lead to death. Heart Wing Sorrel is unusual in that chromosome numbers differ between the sexes. Pistillate plants are 2n = 8 and staminate plants are 2n = 9.—A. Diamond.

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Native

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