ROUGH-FRUITED CINQUEFOIL 



Potentilla recta L. 



June It is iilways uiinnstakahly June and siimiiiertinie 



Uplands, roadsides u hen, aloii^- sandy roads and on slopes and always 



ill l)Ia/,in<i- hot sunshine, the pale yellow ilowers of 

 rough-fruited ciiKinelnil hloom. 



They arc an inch hroad. with live hcart-sha|tcd petals of a creamy 

 liirht yellow. They aiv much like the sin-ile yellow rose, and in fact holong 

 to the rose laniilv. ]>ut the einiiueloil is called a weed. It came over to 

 this country as an uninvited innnitirant from the fields of EuroiX". 



No one know> just how it liap|icnc(| \n conic here. It may have come 

 in a hit of niud caught in the heel of an immigrant from France. It may 

 liave come in a hale of hay, for the cin<|uefoil grows in grain fields and 

 often is threshed with the wheat, oats, or rye whose fields it inhahils. 

 At any rate, the roiigh-rruitcd cin(|uefoil some years ago came across the 

 Atlantic and si-atter((l it-cll in tliat determined way jiiants have in i)er- 

 ])etuating themselves, and iniilt iplied. Now. authorities say. it is found 

 from Maine to Ontario. Illinois, and District of ("olumhia. 



'The tloweis are fragile. The hea it-shaped petals last Ie.<s than a day 

 and as the sun go(\< down in the .lune north, the jietals drift to the 

 ground and more huds prepare to open the next morning at dawn. The 

 plants are stiff, rather liushy with compound, deeply toothed, roughish 

 green leaves. 



150 



