Rumex acetosellaL.

Sheep's sorrel

WFO wfo-0000403586 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Rumex acetosella, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. a Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205624301
Rumex acetosella, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. b Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205552141
Rumex acetosella, photographed by Randy A Nonenmacher
fig. c Randy A Nonenmacher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205295798
Rumex acetosella, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. d Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 204833771
Rumex acetosella, photographed by Quentin Groom
fig. e Quentin Groom, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203786228
Rumex acetosella, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. f Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203311388
Rumex acetosella, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. g Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202652095
Rumex acetosella, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. h Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203599208

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,940 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 1,940 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 39 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Acetosa acetosella Mill.
  • Acetosa acetoselloides (Balansa) Holub
  • Acetosa angiocarpa (Murb.) Holub
  • Acetosa arvensis Friche-Joset & Montandon
  • Acetosa hastata Moench
  • Acetosa multifida (L.) Chaz.
  • Acetosa parva Gilib.
  • Acetosa repens Gray
  • Acetosa sterilis Mill.
  • Acetosella acetosella (L.) Small
  • Acetosella angiocarpa (Murb.) Á.Löve
  • Acetosella multifida (L.) Á.Löve
  • Acetosella multifida subsp. angiocarpa (Murb.) Kubát
  • Acetosella multifida subsp. australis (Willk.) Kubát
  • Acetosella multifida subsp. tenuifolia (Wallr.) Kubát
  • Acetosella multifida subsp. vulgaris (W.D.J.Koch) Kubát
  • Acetosella tenuifolia (Wallr.) Á.Löve
  • Acetosella vulgaris Fourr.
  • Acetosella vulgaris f. integrifolia (Wallr.) Dostál
  • Acetosella vulgaris f. multifida (L.) Dostál
  • Acetosella vulgaris subsp. pyrenaica (Pourr. ex Lapeyr.) Á.Löve
  • Lapathum arvense Lam.
  • Rumex acetosella f. acetosella
  • Rumex acetosella subsp. acetosella

and 15 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.