E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

Potentilla pensylvanica L. var. pensylvanica
Pennsylvanian cinquefoil (Pennsylvania cinquefoil)
Rosaceae (Rose family)

Introduction to Vascular Plants

© Virginia Skilton  Email the photographer   (Photo ID #8567)

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Distribution of Potentilla pensylvanica var. pensylvanica
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Species Information

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General:
Perennial herb from a simple or branched stem-base covered with brown remains of old leaf-bases; stems slender, 1 to several, tufted, spreading to erect, 10-80 cm tall, simple or branched above, hairy and usually also thinly woolly.
Leaves:
Basal leaves stalked, pinnately compound; leaflets 7 to 11 (15), the upper 3 the largest, oblong to lanceolate, 1-5 cm long, cleft halfway or nearly to the midrib into linear-oblong lobes, grey-green and smooth to appressed-hairy on the upper surface, white-woolly to minutely appressed-hairy or nearly smooth and greenish beneath; stem leaves alternate, 3 to 4, reduced upwards.
Flowers:
Inflorescence a compact, narrow, terminal cluster of few to several stalked flowers; corollas yellow, bowl-shaped, the petals 5, egg-shaped, 5-8 mm long, shallowly notched or not at the tip; calyces woolly- to appressed-hairy and more or less glandular, 5-lobed, the lobes lance-triangular, 4-7 mm long, alternating with 5 shorter, narrowly lanceolate bractlets; ovaries superior, the styles glandular-warty-thickened at the base; stamens usually 20.
Fruits:
Achenes, numerous, clustered, lopsided-egg-shaped, 1-1.5 mm long, brown, smooth but often granular.

Source: The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Habitat / Range

Dry grasslands and rocky or gravelly slopes in the steppe and montane zones; frequent in C and E BC, infrequent northward; N to AK, E to NF and S to NV and MN; Greenland.

Source: The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Climate

The climate type for this species, as reported in the: "British Columbia plant species codes and selected attributes. Version 6 Database" (Meidinger et al. 2008), is not evaluated, unknown or variable.

Synonyms and Alternate Names

Potentilla atrovirens Rydb.
Potentilla bipinnatifida var. glabrata (Lehm. ex Hook.) Kohli & Packer
Potentilla glabella Rydb.
Potentilla pensylvanica var. atrovirens (Rydb.) T. Wolf
Potentilla pensylvanica var. glabrata (Lehm. ex Hook.) S. Watson
Potentilla pensylvanica var. ovium Jeps.
Potentilla pensylvanica var. strigosa Pall. ex Pursh
Potentilla platyloba Rydb.
Potentilla pseudosericea Rydb.
Potentilla strigosa (Pall. ex Pursh) Pall. ex Tratt.

Taxonomic and Nomenclatural Links

Additional Photo Sources

General References