COMMON CINQUEFOIL (Five Finger) 



Potentilla simplex Michx. 



May - June Over the dry hilltop and among the low- 



Grassy places, uplands grasses, the traveling stems of common cinque- 

 foil follow their whims and root where they 

 rest on bare earth. They are very much like a strawberry in this, and the 

 plant, in fact, mimis its bright yellow little butterc-up of a flower, might 

 be confused with a wild strawberry plant setting out its ninners. 



The cinquefoil is a common plant, one much loved by children who 

 think it is a small sort of buttercup but very welcome anyway to add to 

 a bouquet. The flowers are half an inch broad, bright gleaming yellow 

 with five, bluntly heart-shaped petals around a yellow center composed 

 of many stamens. Like the other cinquefoils, it is a member of the Rose 

 family, whose tribal characteristics are easily visible in the simple flower 

 and the compound leaves. 



Five-finger, it is often called. Anyone who saw tbose five neat leaflets 

 on the leaf-stem, alternately placed along the traveling nmners, would 

 know why someone called the cinquefoil by that easily remembered name. 

 It is found connnonly in dry places and in the sand country, in sunny, 

 dry oak clearings, when May is past its middle and summer is coming 

 warmly down upon the land. 



149 



