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Western Wetland Flora

Field Office Guide to Plant Species

Tall Cinquefoil
Potentilla arguta Pursh

JPG -- Species Photo JPG -- Distribution Map

Family: Rose (Rosaceae)
Flowering: June-August
Field Marks: This perennial cinquefoil is distinguished by its narrow clusters of white or creamy-white flowers, its unbranched stems up to 3 feet tall, and its pinnately divided basal leaves.
Habitat: Woods, prairies, roadsides.
Habit: Perennial herb with a thickened, often branched rootstock.
Stems: Upright, unbranched, up to 3 feet tall, sticky-hairy.
Leaves: Pinnately compound, with 5-11 leaflets, the basal leaves larger than those on the stem and on longer leaf stalks; leaflets ovate to oblong to elliptic, the largest up to 3 inches long, coarsely toothed to shallowly lobed, hairy and often
Flowers: Several crowded into narrow cymes, the branches upright; each flower subtended by bractlets smaller than the sepals.
Sepals: 5, green, united below, 1/4-1/2 inch long, oblong to lanceolate, pointed at the tip.
Petals: 5, white or creamy-white, free from each other, obovate to oblong, a little shorter or a little longer than the sepals.
Stamens: 20-30.
Pistils: Numerous, with a superior ovary.
Fruits: Achenes slightly beaked, about 1/20 inch long, brown, slightly wrinkled.

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U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/plants/florawe/species/6/poteargu.htm
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