Potentilla fruiticosa : Shruby Cinquefoil

Scientific Name:

Kingdom: Plantae

Division:

• Tracheophyta (vascular)
• Spermatophyta (seed bearing)
Angiospermae (enclosed seed)

Class: Dicoteldonae (two seed-leaves)

Family: Rosaceae (Rose Family)

Genera: Potentilla (Cinquefoil) (Lat. potens=powerful; referring to the strengh of the medicine from some species)

Species: fruiticosa (Lat. frutex= a shrub)

Synonym(s): P.floribunda

English Name(s):

Shruby Cinquefoil, Yellow Tundra Rose

First Nation Names:

Structure:

• Much-branched small shrub up 1.5 meters tall. Usually much shorter.
• Outer bark shreddy, reddish-brown.

Leaves:

• Ternate or Pinnate with 3-5 leaflets.
• Stipules (leaf-like appendages), pinkish, membranous, sheathing with the petioles (leaf stalk).
• Leaflets about 1cm long, narrowly oblanceolate. Green above slightly gray below. Sparsely silky on both sides. Margins entire (smooth).
• On short petiole (stalk) or sessile (not stalked)

Reproductive Parts:

• Sepals alternating with sepal-like bractlets; Petals yellow.
• Flowers perfect (bisexual) and regular in symetry.
• Flowers, 2-3 cm across, solitary or in few flowered cymes from leaf axils.

Seed:

• Fruits are small, dry, achenes, inserted on the dry receptacle (flower base).
• Achenes 1.5-2mm long, with stiff white hairs.

Not to Be Confused With:

• There are no other shrubs with bright yellow flowers in our area.
• This is the only woody (shruby) Potentilla (Cinquefoil).

Physiology:

• P.fruiticosa is the only woody Cinquefoil. And some taxonomists split it off into its own genus because of its woody nature.
• Curiously in Ireland, the flowers of these plants are imperfect (unisexual) and the plants are dioecious (one gendered).

Life Cycle:

• Perennial.

Seasonal Cycle:

• Leaves deciduous (falling off).
• It blooms for most of the summer.

Animal Uses:

Habitat:

• Common in open and partially wooded muskeg or tundra.
• Grows beyond treeline in both latitude and elevation.

Modern:

Industrial:

Medicinal:

Food:

Traditional Gwich'in:

Folklore:

Industrial:

Medicinal:

Food:

Traditional Other:

Folklore:

• In astrology Potentilla are said to be governed by Jupiter.
• In the Victorian Language of Flowers these plants symbolized "beloved daughter" or " I claim, at least, your esteem".
• Potentilla were said to flourish in the gardens of witches. One of few yellow flowers they cared for.

Industrial:

Medicinal:

Food: