Watch: Wood Sorrel Plant Throws Seeds When Touched

A clip of a Wood Sorrel plant ejecting oxalis seeds from a seed pod is doing the rounds of social media. The video shows a person touching the plant with a stick. On contact with the stick, this plant starts ejecting oxalis seeds from its seed pod. As seen in the clip, there is no particular opening from where the plant throws out these seeds. It widens up multiple openings on its body and throws out the oxalis seeds from it. The user, who uploaded this video, wrote in the caption,”*pew pew* Oxalis seeds being ejected from the seed pod. The whole thing happens in half a second. Made this video in November ’21 using the slow-motion feature in my phone camera and since then it’s done some rounds. #oxalis #oxaliscorniculata #botany #seeds”.

This user has also attached a research paper revealing more about this characteristic of the oxalis seeds. In the research paper, it is written that the Oxalis spiralis plant can release a consecutive seed ejection by triggering only one seed. If the protrusion on an aril, a specialised outgrowth covering a seed is disturbed, cracks would occur and open the aril. Subsequently, the whole aril snaps and transforms its stored strain energy to eject the inside seed with an optimal launching angle. Once the first seed is triggered, its curly aril will contact the next seed’s protrusion and induce its firing. This chain effect will further trigger the remaining seeds in turns, within 0.1 s.

More about the Wood Sorrel plant

Wood Sorrel plant is found in tropical Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. Due to its stored energy, this plant can eject its seeds very quickly at a distance of 4 metres. These plants eject seeds targeting the same object that triggers them. This is an interesting sight but if one is not careful, it can even cause injury.

As per the reports, this is a flowering plant that is widely distributed around the world, especially in Asia. The Wood Sorrel plant has heart-shaped leaflets and usually appears in groups of three. The four-leaved one is a cultivar. It is very common in southern parts of China, as you can find them almost everywhere on hillsides, fields, on riverbanks and by the road.