Robin wrote O. gracilis, or something very similar, is sometimes sold in commerce as O. karroica, a name which I have not found in the standard Oxalis literature or IPNI. It is a lovely plant. --- Like you, I've come across the name O. karroica, but have never been able to trace a valid reference to it. O tenuifolia is rather similar ---Sadly, the flowers are almost over. However, I'lll try to key it out against O. tenuifolia. My only doubt is that it has red edges to the petals, whereas Salter says O. tenuifolia has purple edges. I've held this view for many years - the spelling is actually melanosticta --- many thanks for noticing my mistake. Mary Sue wrote: I remembered that earlier on the Oxalis group that David Victor told about a checklist to solve that problem. Does this checklist tell where each of the species is from or time of bloom? --- The degree of data depends on what Richard could lay his hands on at the time of writing, to be honest. However, it does cover every species, sub-species and variety he has been able to trace, as well as all of the invalid names and synonyms, with pointers to the correct versions. For each entry he gives the epithet, author, date, and journal of publication. Then, its status, its country and place of origin, Basion, as good a description as he could gather, details of any illustrations and remarks. It is the best that I know of and certainly surpasses IK. --- With this in mind, I thought that I would consult it to sort out my confusion over O. articulatat and O. crassipes. Salter handles O crassipes, but only as a var. of O. hirta (var. tenuicaulis). Richard's entries are as follows: O. crassipes Urb. in Eichl. Jahrb. Berl. http://iii.com:242/ (1884) Status: Species Habitat/Ecogolgy: Africa "trop", says Index Kewensis O. crassipes L. Bolus in Journ. Bo. lxvi:9 (1928) Status: invalid name, synonym, see O. hirta L. var. tenuicaulis Knuth, says Salter So, the name has been used twice to cover two different oxalis. More recently, Index Kewensis has been updated to include O. articulata forma crassipes (Urb) Lourteig, published in Phytologia 50: 138 (1982). Prof. Alicia Lourteig is an authority, particularly on the weed forms of Oxalis. Incidentally, once again we see the importance of quoting the authority when using names! Best regards, David Victor