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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

Rosaceae - The Rose Family

A large, diverse family commonly divided into several distinct subfamilies, many species cultivated for fruit and ornament. Those treated here herbs and shrubs with alternate, simple or compound leaves, the leaves usually stipulate (stipules absent in Spiraea). Flowers solitary or usually in cymose or paniculate inflorescences, perfect, regular, perigynous; sepals 5, sometimes alternating with 5 or more somewhat smaller bractlets, the sepals attached around the rim of a saucerlike, disklike or cupulate hypanthium; petals 5, usually yellow, white or pink, frequently small and inconspicuous; stamens 15-many, seldom as few as 10, inserted near the rim of the hypanthium; carpels 5-many, seldom fewer than 5, separate, the ovaries ripening as an aggregate of achenes or follicles, these often enclosed by the persistent hypanthium.

Lead	Characteristic	Go To
1	Shrub with simple leaves; flowers white; fruit of 5 or fewer follicles	Genus Spiraea
1	Herbs with compound leaves; flowers yellow or yellowish to pinkish; fruit an aggregate of many achenes.	Lead 2
2	Styles inconspicuous, not elongating after flowering, usually deciduous.	Genus Potentilla
2	Styles conspicuous, elongating after flowering and persistent in fruit, jointed.	Genus Geum

26. Rosaceae, the Rose Family

1. Geum L.-- Avens

1. Geum rivale L. -- Water or purple avens

2. Potentilla L. -- Cinquefoil

1. Potentilla anserina L. -- Silverweed

2. Potentilla norvegica L. -- Strawberryweed

3. Potentilla palustris (L.) Scop. -- Bog cinquefoil

4. Potentilla paradoxa Nutt. ex Torr. & Gray -- Bushy cinquefoil

5. Potentilla rivalis Nutt. -- Brook cinquefoil

3. Spiraea L. -- Meadosweet

1. Spiraea alba Du Roi

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