MEMOIRS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 99 
80. Potentilla bipinnatifida Douegl. 
Potentilla bipinnatifida Douglas; Hooker, Fl. Bor. Am. 1: 188. 1835. 
Eat. Man. Ed. 7: 458; Hat. & Wr. N. A. Bot. 374; Walp. Ann. 2: 480; Don, Gard. 
Dict. 2: 558. 
Potentilla arguta Lehm. Mon. 21 and 62. 1820. Not Pursh, 1814. 
Spreng. Syst. Veg. 2: 534; Schlecht. & Cham. Linnaea, 2: 26. 
Potentilla agrimonioides var. Bieb. Fl. Taur. Cauc. 3: 354, fide Lehmann. 
Potentilla Biebersteiniana Tratt. Ros. Mon. 4: No, 24. 
Potentilla candicans Fisch; Lehm. Rey. Pot. 60. 1856. 
Potentilla Pennsylvanica bipinnatifida Torr. & Gray, Fl. N. A. 1: 438. 1840. 
Lehm. Rey. Pot. 60; Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. 137; Hook. Journ. Bot. 6: 220; Walp. 
Rep. 2: 32; Dietr. Syn. Pl. 3: 186; Rydb. Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, 23: 263; Britt. & 
Brown, Ill. Fl. 2: 214. 
Potentilla Pennsylvania arguta Ser. in DC. Prod. 2: 581. 1825. 
ILLUSTRATIONS: PLATE 39, f. 1; dissection of flower, f. 2; stamen, f. 3; pistil, f, 4; 
fruiting hypanthium and calyx, f. 5. 
Stems several from a perennial root, erect or ascending. strict and simple, leafy, 
finely white silky-villous, 3-5 dm. high. Basal leaves many, with petioles 5-10 cm. long, 
pinnate, with 3 or 4 approximate pairs of leaflets, densely and finely silky above, white- 
tomentose beneath; leaflets 2-4 em. long, obovate in outline, pectinately divided to near 
the midrib into almost linear, mostly obtuse segments. Stem leaves similar, but short- 
petioled or subsessile and often subdigitate. Stipules ovate or lanceolate, 2-4 cm. long, 
sometimes toothed. Cyme dense and contracted. Hypanthium white-silky, in fruit 
about 8 mm. in diameter; bractlets oblong-lanceolate, shorter than the ovate sepals. 
Petals obovate, cuneate, truncate, about equalling the sepals. 
Lehmann regards this as a distinct species in Hooker's Flora Boreali-Americana, but, 
following Torrey and Gray, reduces it to a variety of P. Pennsylvanica in his Reyisio. As 
he mentions a glabrate form of P. bipinnatifida, he must have had P. litoralis in view. 
P. bipinnatifida is also much nearer related to that species than to P. Pennsylvanica, hay- 
ing the same leaf form and general habit, but is more erect and densely silky and tomen- 
tose. In all the material examined I have found but a single specimen that in any 
way could be regarded as a connecting link. This, as well as P. Pennsylvanica, it is a 
plant confined to the northwestern plain region, extending from Saskatchewan and 
Alberta to Colorado. 
