Rumex acetosa

Common Name: Garden Sorrel, Sour Dock

Family: Polygonaceae

Country of Origin: Britain.

Description: The leaf of this herb has many uses. In cooking you can add raw leaves to sorrel soup or salads. You can cook Sorrel in the same manner as spinach for seasoning vegetable soups, lamb, beef, omelettes and sauces.

Uses: Edible: Leaves - raw or cooked. They make a thirst-quenching on their own, or can be added to salads, used as a potherb or pureed and used in soups. A delicious lemon-like flavour, liked by most people who try them, they can be rather overpowering in quantity and are more generally used as a flavouring in mixed salads. The leaves can also be dried for later use. The leaves can be available all through the winter, especially in mild weather or if a little protection is given to the plants. The leaves should be used sparingly in the diet, see the notes on toxicity above. Flowers - cooked as a vegetable or used as a garnish. Root - cooked. It is dried, ground into a powder and made into noodles. Seed - raw or cooked. Ground into a powder and mixed with other flours to make bread. The seed is easy to harvest, but is rather small and fiddly to use. The juice of the leaves can be used as a curdling agent for milks.¹

Medicinal: The fresh or dried leaves are astringent, diuretic, laxative and refrigerant. They are used to make a cooling drink in the treatment of fevers and are especially useful in the treatment of scurvy. The leaf juice, mixed with fumitory, has been used as a cure for itchy skin and ringworm. An infusion of the root is astringent, diuretic and haemostatic. It has been used in the treatment of jaundice, gravel and kidney stones. Both the roots and the seeds have been used to stem haemorrhages. A paste of the root is applied to set dislocated bones. The plant is depurative and stomachic. A homeopathic remedy is made from the plant. It is used in the treatment of spasms and skin ailments.¹

USDA Zone: 3a-7b

Accession #: 199200339

Accession Date: 1992-12-31 00:00:00

Bloom Status: 🪴 Not Flowering

Location: 2315

Quantity: 1

Source: Steve Severson

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Subclass: core eudicots

Order: Caryophyllales

Family: Polygonaceae

SubFamily: Polygonoideae

Tribe: Rumiceae