Dictionary

soursob en · NOUN

Meanings

1. Bermuda buttercup (Oxalis pes-caprae), an edible wood sorrel native to South Africa.
   • SOURSOP WEED (OXALIS CERNUA). This rather pretty looking flower has become a great pest in many gardens around the city. We are asked how it is to be got rid of. Although not nearly so difficult of eradication as nut-grass, yet so many hundreds of minute bulbs gather round the parent bulb that the more the ground is stirred the greater the area infested. We know however of no destructive agent which could be applied to it in a flower garden without at the same time injuring the flowers. The surest way is dig up the bulbs on the clear ground and pick them off, and amongst the flowers to constantly pull up the leaf-stalks. […] 1898, Queensland Agricultural Journal, volume 3, page 175:
   • [see the title already] 1919, A.G. Edquist, “Notes on the vitality of the Soursop (Oxalis cernua)”, in South Australia Naturalist, volume 1, pages 4–5:
2. (broadly) Bermuda buttercup (Oxalis pes-caprae), an edible wood sorrel native to South Africa. ▸ Any wood sorrel, especially when used as food.
   • Soursop. Mr. J. E. Taylor read a short paper on the “Soursop” (Oxalis). It was to be regretted that those who introduced this weed were not better acquainted with its habits. 1905, The Journal of the Department of Agriculture of South Australia, volume 8, page 701:
   • Unmanured soils growing sorrel, soursop (Oxalis spp.) and similar acid-loving plants, will usually produce pasture and other forages low in both lime and phosphoric acid. […] Similarly, lime is required to neutralize many acids which are characteristic of some plants such as sorrel, soursop, rhubarb, &c. 1940, The Journal of the Department of Agriculture of South Australia, volume 38, pages 435, 436:

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