79 
Potentilla recta L 
While visiting in Western New York last summer I came 
across this plant in Genesee county, about two miles northwest of 
LeRoy. It was well established along a quiet country road and 
was quite abundant for a few rods between the roadway and an 
adjoining wood. It seemed as much at home as P. Norvegica 
and P. Canadensis, growing near by. I was told by Mr. E. 
Huftelen, well-known to florists as a grower of hardy lily- bulbs 
whose gardens are near by, that he had noticed the plant in this 
place for about eleven years, and that another locality for it was 
found a little farther west, near the town of Stafford. 
P. recta is in habit more like P. arguta than any other Poten- 
tilla within its range. But its large flowers with obcordate petals 
of a pale or sulphur-yellow color, and its symmetrical, digitate 
leaves, at once indicate something different. The radical and 
lower stem-leaves are raised on rather long petioles, and nearly 
all full grown leaves are composed of seven oblanceolate leaflets, 
whose margins are incisely serrate. The flowers do not last long, 
the petals being quite fugacious like those of P. arguta. But on 
the whole it is a pretty “ weed,’’ and not a bad acquisition to our 
flora. 
Its nearest relative in this country is to be sought in the dis- 
tant West as P. gracilis Dougl., and its varieties. One of these 
Was first described by Nuttall* as P. recta(?), who thus doubtfully 
identified the plant of the Upper Missouri with the European 
Species. This he afterwards changed to P. rigida, now P. gracilis 
D ougl. var. vigida Watson. P. gracilis is a plant of the Rocky 
Mountain region and of the Pacific slope, extending from New 
Mexico to the Saskatchewan and Alaska. P. recta is indigenous 
to Middle and Southern Europe, the Caucasus and Western Si- 
beria. It has a place among ornamental plants, but seems to be 
little cultivated or lightly esteemed, and is not mentioned in such 
Standard works as Nicholson’s “ Dictionary of Gardening : oles 2 
Vilmorin-Andrieux’s “Fleurs de Pleine Terre.” Donne mentions 
it in the « Hortus Cantabrigensis,” and states that it brought — 
* Genera i. 310, Loe a, | 
