Beneficial Properties

• Add wood sorrel leaves to your salad.Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
  
  Wood sorrel is a beneficial weed you can use in a number of ways. With the exception of the roots, the entire plant is edible. The leaves have a slightly sour taste but can be added to salads or eaten raw, as can the flowers and the delicate seedpods. Seedpods should be eaten when immature. Wood sorrel leaves contain ascorbic acid or vitamin C. Use the leaves to make tea to soothe stomachaches and indigestion.
  
  

Animal Magnet

• Sparrows enjoy wood sorrel seeds.David De Lossy/Photodisc/Getty Images
  
  Yellow wood sorrel flowers are a magnet for fauna. Bees and butterflies pollinate the plants while syrphid or hoverflies just enjoy the pollen. Birds that feed on wood sorrel seeds include mourning doves, horned larks, different species of sparrows as well as migrating juncos. Rabbits and deer also eat wood sorrel leaves.
  
  

Description

• Yellow wood sorrel has three, green heart-shaped leaves and look like clover or small shamrocks. The leaves close up at night or when the plant is stressed. This bushy little plant can grow anywhere from 1 inch to 6 inches in height and features small yellow flowers which start to bloom in mid-spring and continue till the fall. Flowers develop into inch-long seedpods that can spray seed up to 10 feet away when they burst open. Yellow wood sorrel has a main taproot from which more roots spread.
  
  

Growth Patterns

• This common weed will grow in almost any type of soil and lighting although it prefers full sun. You may find wood sorrel growing in well-tilled garden beds as well as in cracks in sidewalks. The seeds can spread to a distance of 10 feet, so it will grow far from the parent plant. Since it is not very particular about its habitat, wood sorrel is also found is areas that have been disturbed and in compacted soil.