Dwarf Cinquefoil

Potentilla canadensis I<. Sp. PI. 498. 1753
.Fragaria canadensis Crantz, Inst. 2 : 178. 1766. Polentilla sarmentosa Muhl.; Willd. Enum. 554. 1809. Callionia canadensis Greene, Leaflets 1 : 238. 1906.
Perennial, with a short thick rootstock ; stems few, slender, silkyvillous, generally with spreading pubescence, tinged with red, at first upright or assurgent, later decumbent or prostrate and flagelliform, 4-6 dm. long ; stipules ovate or lanceolate, often 2-5-cleft or toothed, with acute divisions ; basal leaves digitately 5-foliolate or 3-foliolate with the lateral leaflets divided in two ; petioles 3-10 cm. long, with long spreading pubescence ; leaflets 2-5 cm. long, obovate-oblanceolate or oval, coarsely serrate, slightly silky on both sides or glabrate above, usually obtuse or rounded at the apex ; stem-leaves similar but short-petioled and often somewhat fascicled ; flowers solitary, the first one from the axil of the second or some subsequent stem-leaf , on slender hirsute pedicels 3-10 cm. long; hypanthium silky, in fruit about 8 mm. in diameter ; bractlets lin ear-lanceolate, about equaling the ovate or lanceolate sepals, 4-5 mm. long; petals yellow, obcordate, exceeding the sepals by about one ■third, 5-6 mm. long ; stamens about 20.
Type locality : Canada. ^ i .
Distribution : Dry ground, New Brunswick to Wisconsin, eastern Texas, Alabama, and North 'Carolina.

Potentilla caroliniana Poir. in Lam. Encyc. 5 : 595. 1804
Perennial, with a short rootstock ; stems prostrate, reddish and usually rooting at the nodes, 3-10 dm. long with spreading pubescence ; basal leaves digitately 5-foliolate ; petioles 2-8 cm. long, with coarse usually reflexed hairs ; leaflets broadly obovate with a 'Cuneate base, coarsely toothed above, 1.5-4 cm. long, usually firm, loosely pubescent with long and spreading hairs on both sides ; stem-leaves similar but small, short-petioled and often 3-foliolate ; stipules small, lanceolate ; pedicels 4-6 cm. long, with spreading hairs ; ibractlets and sepals lanceolate, 3^ mm. long ; petals yellow, obcordate, one third longer •than the sepals.
Type locality : Carolina.
Distribution : Dry woods, from southern Virginia to Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia.

Potentilla pumila Poir. in Lam. Encyc. 5 : 594. 1804
Potentilla canadensis Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 1 : 303. 1803. Not P. canadensis L. 1753. Potentilla canadensis pumila T. & G. Fl. N. Am. 1 : 443. 1840. Callionia pumila Greene, Leaflets 1 : 238. 1906.
Perennial, with a short rootstock ; stems at flowering time very short and upright, less than 1 dm. high, later on producing longer runner-like and prostrate branches, densely silky-strigose ; stipules ovate or lanceolate, entire or toothed, 1 cm. long or less ; basal leaves with silky-strigose petioles 2-4 cm. long, digitately 5-foliolate ; leaflets obovate-cuneate, about 2 cm. long, densely silky-strigose, coarsely serrate towards the apex or at most above the middle only ; flowers few, 6-10 mm. in diameter, axillary, the first one generally from the axil of the first stem-leaf, with slender strigose pedicels 3-5 cm, long ; hypanthium densely silky-strigose ; bractlets and sepals subequal, narrowly lanceolate, 3-5 mm. long ; petals yellow, rounded-obovate, rounded or truncate or slightly emarginate at the apex, 4-7 mm. long, a little exceeding the sepals; stamens about 20; styles slender, filiform.
Type locality : North America.
Distribution : Sandy or dry soil from Maine to Georgia, Ohio, and Ontario. ~, Illustrations : Nestler, Monog. Potent, pi. 10,/. 1 (as P. canadensis) ; Britt. & Brown, 111. FL/. 1935a; Mem. Dep. Bot. Columbia Univ. 2 ; pi. 18, f. 1-2.

Potentilla canadensis, the dwarf cinquefoil, is a species of cinquefoil (genus Potentilla) native to North America.

The Iroquois take a pounded infusion of the roots as an antidiarrheal. The Natchez give the plant as a drug for those believed to be bewitched.

Along with Potentilla simplex, the plant is an indicator of impoverished soil as well as the host species for the cinquefoil bud gall wasp Diastrophus potentillae.