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Oxyria digyna
Also called Alpine mountain-sorrel, Alpine sorrel, Mountain sorrel, Wood sorrel
Alpine mountainsorrel is a small, tufted perennial of cold mountain and arctic habitats, grown mainly as a hardy rock or alpine plant. It needs cool conditions, moisture and cold winters rather than heat.
Oxyria digyna (mountain sorrel, wood sorrel, Alpine sorrel or Alpine mountain-sorrel) is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family (Polygonaceae). It is native to arctic regions and mountainous parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
Mountain sorrel is common in the tundra of the Arctic. Further south, it has a circumboreal distribution, growing in high mountainous areas in the Northern Hemisphere such as the Alps, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade Range. It typically grows in alpine meadows, scree, snow-bed sites and beside streams.
The leaves of mountain sorrel have a sour or fresh acidic taste (due to oxalic acid) and are rich in vitamin C, containing about 36 mg/100 g. They can be eaten raw or cooked. They were used by the Inuit to prevent and cure scurvy. Mountain sorrel has also been an important plant in Saami diet. The plant is important for both insects and larger animals that feed on it in arctic and alpine regions where it occurs.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Oxyria digyna by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
