Potentilla anserina L.
common silverweed
Rosaceae (Rose family)
Introduction to Vascular Plants
common silverweed
Rosaceae (Rose family)
Introduction to Vascular Plants
Species Information click to expand contents
General:
Perennial herb from a long, strawberry-like stolon or runner, rooting and producing leaf-clusters at the nodes, spreading-silky on the stolons.
Leaves:
All basal, tufted, 5-25 cm long, stalked, ascending, pinnately compound; 7 to 21 main leaflets 0.5-3.5 cm long, interspersed with smaller ones, oblong to egg-shaped, coarsely saw-toothed, whitish-silky-woolly on both surfaces to greenish and sparsely hairy above, the leaf-stalks spreading-silky.
Flowers:
Inflorescence of single flowers on long naked stalks from the leafy nodes of the stolons, the stalks 3-10 cm long; corollas yellow, bowl-shaped, the petals 5, oval to oval-oblong , 6-12 mm long; calyces silky, 5-lobed, the lobes triangular-egg-shaped, 3-6 mm long, enlarging and becoming erect in fruit, alternating with 5 shorter, often toothed bractlets; ovaries superior; stamens 20 to 25.
Fruits:
Achenes, numerous, plumply egg-shaped, about 2 mm long, wrinkled lengthwise.
Illustration click to expand contents
If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.
Illustration Source: The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Ecology click to expand contents
Ecological Framework for Potentilla anserina
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from
original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range.
(Updated August, 2013)
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from
original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range.
(Updated August, 2013)
| Site Information |
Value / Class |
||
|
Avg |
Min |
Max |
|
| Elevation
(metres) |
890 | 0 | 1630 |
| Slope
Gradient (%) |
2 | 0 | 40 |
|
Aspect (degrees) |
179 | 0 | 355 |
| Soil
Moisture Regime (SMR) [0 - very xeric; 4 - mesic; 8 - hydric] |
5 | 1 | 8 |
| Modal
Nutrient Regime
Class |
D | ||
| #
of field plots species was recorded in: |
177 | ||
| Modal
BEC Zone Class |
IDF | ||
|
All BEC Zones (# of stations/zone) species was recorded in |
BG(17), BWBS(2), CDF(1), CWH(7), IDF(108), MS(6), PP(21), SBPS(11), SBS(3) | ||
|
Source:
Klinkenberg 2013
|
|||
Habitat and Range click to expand contents
Margins of streams, lakes and ponds, mudflats, and moist alkaline meadows and grasslands in the montane zone; common in S BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, rare northward; circumboreal, N to AK, E to NF and S to CA, NM, IA and NY; Eurasia.
Synonyms click to expand contents
Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Argentina anserina (L.) Rydb.
Potentilla anserina var. groenlandica Tratt.
Potentilla egedii var. groenlandica (Tratt.) Polunin