THE TORMENTIL AND CINQUEFOIL. 39 



palsy, gout, sciatica, and many other ailments. The 

 cinquefoil has a long, trailing or creeping stem, which 

 roots at intervals, like the runners from the strawberry 

 plant, and enables it to take possession very rapidly 

 of a considerable share of the hedgerow. All the leaves 

 are on long stalks, and are coarsely serrate in outline. 

 The flowers are borne singly on long stems, which rise 

 from the axil of the leaves. These flower-stalks are 

 ordinarily longer than those that bear the leaves. The 

 cinquefoil is a perennial, and flowers from June to 

 September. Even when not in blossom the plant is 

 attractive from the beautiful form of the foliage. We for 

 some time used it as a bordering in part of our garden, 

 and a very beautiful wreath-like line of flower and leaf it 

 made ; the only objection to its use will be found in the 

 vigour with which it throws out its long spreading stems, 

 an energy that makes it somewhat difficult to keep it 

 quite within due bounds. The petals of the cinquefoil are 

 five in number ordinarily, though under special circum- 

 stances a greater number may at times be met with, in the 

 same way that we have seen that the normal five segments 

 of the leaf may at times be exceeded. Out of one hundred 

 blossoms that we picked as a test, eighty had the parts of 

 the corolla, calyx, and epicalyx in fives, while the remain- 

 ing twenty were in sixes. 



The tormentil, Potentilla Tormentilla, the second plant 

 represented on the plate, is in its typical state sufficiently 

 distinct from the cinquefoil, though from the occurrence 

 from time to time of intermediate forms some botanists 

 have been inclined to regard the two plants as really only 

 two well-marked varieties of the one species. As these 

 intermediate links are not commonly met with, while the 



