Question for plant experts.

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Am curious to identify a house plant.

It appeared as a weed growing in the pot of a fern or something.

But we thought it was a cool looking plant so we didnt weed it out.

Both plants duked it out for water and light.

Finally I yanked out the original plant and let the weed have the pot to itsself.

It has burgandy colored triangular leaves arranged in groups of threes.

It looks like a flock of burgandy colored three winged butterflies taking flight.

Any ideas as to what kind of plant it is?

Do you have a picture of it?

Sounds like an oxalis cultivar. Purple shamrock perhaps.

Does it look something like this?
http://www.plantoftheweek.org/week021.shtml

Beautiful plant. I might have to get one of those. Thanks.

Hmmmm...

Similar.

I have seen the plant in this picture outdoors in gardens many times.

The plant inside my house is similiar. The leaves are the right shape and pattern. But the leaves are one burgandy color. Not quite that color, and not that pattern.
But it is similiar. Maybe its a stunted version of that plant (because its confined to a little pot maybe?).

There are many cultivars that aren't Purple Shamrock, but were bred from it. The most common indoor cultivar is Oxalis Triangularis, which has a more 'burgundy' colour and is smaller than the garden/wild variety

(The link is to a Dutch website)

http://www.groen.net/Article.aspx?id=16162

To find out if it is an Oxalis cultivar is easy. Just carefully dig the soil away. If you see a small bulb, it's an Oxalis cultivar.

ETA: Oxalis colouring is a bit like litmus. If the soil in the pot has a fairly low pH, the leaves will turn more towards red. So that could be another explanation for the burgundy colour.

oxalis triangularis regenalli

That seems to be the variant with the closest resemblence- from looking at the photos at the site I just now googled.

But its definetly somewhere in that family of plants.

Thank you all for the input.