General description:- Herbs, rarely small shrubs.
Leaves:- Usually compound.
Flowers:- 5-merous, hermaphrodite, actinomorphic. Ovary superior, 5-locular; placentation axile.
Fruit:- A capsule. Seeds with endosperm.
OXALIS
General description:- Perennial herbs, sometimes bulbous.
Leaves:- Palmately 3(-8) foliolate, with or without stipules; leaflets usually indented at the apex, otherwise entire, showing sleep-movements.
Flowers:- Inflorescence axillary, cymose, sometimes a cymose umbel or a single flower. Flowers often heterostylous. Sepals 5, free; petals 5, free or weakly united. Stamens 10, in two whorls, the inner whorl opposite the sepals and the outer whorl opposite the petals (obdiplostemonous). Ovules numerous. Styles 5, free.
Fruit:- A capsule, splitting into the cells, along the midrib or dorsal suturea (loculicidal). Seeds projectile, with an elastic integument.
Comments:-
Several bulbous species, originally introduced by gardeners, have become established to the extent of being serious weeds; these species often develope tuberous roots. They multiply vegetatively by fragmentation into bulbils, but are virtually seed-sterile.