Images: ©Jouko Lehmuskallio
Creeping Cinquefoil
Potentilla reptans
- Family: Rose Family – Rosaceae
- Height: 10–15 cm (4–6 in.). Creeping stems 30–130 cm (12–50 in.)
- Flower: Regular, diameter 1.5–2.5 cm (0.6–1 in.). Sepals five, sharp-pointed, hairy. Beneath sepals an epicalyx consisting of five elliptic bracts. Petals five, bright-yellow, broad, notched, ca. twice the length of the sepals. Carpels free, many. Stamens twenty. Receptacle hairy. Long-stalked flowers singly in the leaf axils.
- Leaves: Alternate, stipulate. Long- or short-stalked or almost stalkless, blade palmate. Leaflets five, obovate, with rounded tip, large-toothed, hairy on both sides. Stipules elliptic, sharp-pointed.
- Fruit: A greyish-brown achene.
- Habitat: Meadows, waysides, shores, old ports.
- Flowering time: July–August.
The cinquefoils (Potentilla spp.) are usually herbs, sometimes subshrubs or small shrubs. It is a large genus of approximately 500 species. Cinquefoils occur in all continents, but are most abundant in the temperate regions of the Northern hemisphere. Some of the species are among the most primitive in the rose family (Rosaceae), others are highly specialized. The oldest forms, existing already in the Tertiary, were possibly woody. Some of the subshrub type cinquefoils closely resemble the strawberries (Fragaria spp.).
The creeping cinquefoil is an alien in Finland. As the name suggests, it develops a prostrate stem and long runners. Despite this, vegetative reproduction is not very successful, but the seeds are dispersed over long distances with humans or animals. The creeping cinquefoil is mostly a species of neutral or basic substrates. It is thought that it originally spread to Finland with ballast soil in sailing ships. Later other traffic has functioned as the dispersing agent. To Kainuu it probably spread with German troops in WW II.
