Spring cinquefoil
Potentilla verna
Family · Rosaceae · Harmless
The cushion of yellow five-petalled flowers appearing early in mountain meadows and rock ledges, long before most high-altitude flowers open.
Uplands · Fields and pasture · Scrubland
Also known asalpine cinquefoil
How to tell it
A creeping plant in a dense tuft, with leaves divided into five to seven toothed leaflets radiating from a point, like an open hand. Bright yellow flowers one to two centimetres, with five inverted-heart petals and a visible ring of sepals behind. It grows on mountain rock and meadow. Range: mainly a Spanish plant, practically absent from Portugal.
What it is confused with
Creeping buttercup
Ranunculus repens
Both yellow with five petals. Look behind the flower: cinquefoil has two rings of sepals, buttercup only one. And cinquefoil's leaf has five to seven leaflets in a hand, buttercup's three. Only the buttercup irritates skin.
What it is for
No use
It is good for practising the difference between a five-petalled rose relative and a buttercup: rose relatives have a second ring of sepals behind the true ones, the epicalyx, and buttercups do not.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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