Oxalis rubricallosa

Oxalis rubricallosa is a newly recorded sorrel species, a slender perennial. It grows a few long, soft-looking branches with long internodes. The stems are faintly red to green here.

The fleshy brick-brown stipules at the base of the petiolules are in evidence, as well as the pink tinge of a budding corolla peeping from some closed sepals.

The lines at each petal base that appear dark against the yellow colouring when viewing the flower from above, look translucent here, from the outside. The secondary umbel inflorescence structure can be observed here.

O. rubricallosa has only been found on a couple of sites in the Northern Cape near the Gariep River.

The habitat in the far north of the Richtersveld is south-facing rocky mountain slopes, arid fynbos and scrub. The species is considered vulnerable in habitat early in the twenty first century, due to range restrictedness amidst grazing needs for informal farmer flocks in continually more degraded, uncontrolled veld (iNaturalist; iSpot; http://redlist.sanbi.org).