Oseille Rouge - Red Sorrel - Such a Beautiful Thing!

I thought this would be a quick and easy post to write, but after trying to find the botanical name of this plant on-line, it proved to be quite a project.  The plant above, with its shiny crinkly green leaves and deep blood-red veining, were the happy result of a French seed packet brought back to me from Europe by one of David Kinch's cooks, J.P.   The seed packet says "Oseille Rouge" on it.  "Oseille," pronounced "Oh-Zehy," means "Sorrel" in French. 

I've been propagating it for Manresa and Chef Kinch for months now, and most of it doesn't make it big enough to plant out in the garden.  Not because it dies, or it's not the season, but because Chef loves using it small, straight out of the seed tray.  I insisted on saving some from the last batch to plant out in the garden, and this was the day to do it.  I had to choose a place that it could stay for years to come, because my knowledge of its supposed sister plant, green sorrel, is that it's a perennial, and will last for years well tended in perpetually damp soil.  Here's what regular sorrel, often called French Sorrel, botanical name, Rumex Acetosa, looks like:

I wanted to include the botanical name of the Oseille Rouge here, but like I said, when I started researching it, I found that there are as many different kinds of sorrel as there are paparazzi hounding Britney Spears. I spent way too much time looking at images of what purported to be Red Sorrel (none matched the plant I'm growing) and found out that the synonyms of Red Sorrel are as diverse as Bloody Dock, Sheep's Sorrel, Jamaican sorrel, Roselle, Rozelle, Hibiscus Sabdariffa, and Rumex Sanguineus.  Whew! 

I even went to the source, the seed company that packaged the seed, Graines Voltz.  They list it on their French website, but do not list a botanical name.  At least I know where to go when I need more of it.  The great thing about European seed packets is that you get a lot of seeds, much more than in our stingy American packets.

Regular green French Sorrel, is a fabulous herb/salad green.  It's one of the things that I have people taste when I'm showing them the garden.  They are amazed at it's very lemony flavor.  The Oseille Rouge is similarly flavored, but much prettier.

So alas, we have it, and you can eat it at Manresa, but if you want to grow this beauty yourself, you'll have to order the seed of Oseille Rouge from Graines Voltz yourself.  Good luck with the French translation!  If any of you know for sure, without a doubt, no foolin' what the true botanical name of this is, and where I can get it here in the States, I'd love to hear from you!  Update:  As you can see in the comments, we got it sorted out.  It is indeed Rumex Sanguineus, and it's available from Johnny's Seeds.  They call it "Red Veined Sorrel," but they also list the botanical name underneath it.  Here is a new shot I took of the babies that the chef likes to use:

Comments

[JP]

Hi Cynthia, nice post and nice pictures. The name for the red sorrel is Rumex sanguineus, it seems it goes by a different name in english (dock instead of sorrel).

[DK]

So blood sorrel. We also found bloodwort, bloody wood dock and red veined dock as other English names.

[Love Apple Farm]

JP: You've got it! It must be Rumex Sanguineus. I ran across that in my initial search, but all I looked at were photos of the mature plant, which seemed much different to me than the young plants that we grow (we haven't let it get big yet). But I have been able to now see pics of young plants, and yep, you're right!

[Lana Bryan]

I've read that red sorrel grows well under redwoods and plan to plant some under mine. Do you think it might be the edible kind? Bonus, if so!

[Love Apple Farm]

Lana: I think it's the same kind, but you might want to double-check. There are so many different names for it. The kind they say will grow under redwoods is also what they call a weed. But hey, some weeds are better than others. I'm going to do a post soon on our edible weeds here.

[Jennifer]

Dear Cynthia,
Blood Sorrel can be purchased from Mulberry Creek Herb Farm Huron, Ohio USA - Mulberrycreek.com