SILVER- WEED; SILVER-FEATHER 



Potentilla Anserina L. 

 ROSE FAMILY 



The Silver-weed has a cheerful and active disposition, readily 

 adapting itself to a variety of conditions, and quickly grasping 

 opportunities for advancing its fortunes. Preferring wet ground, 

 yet making the most of dry, it has occupied so much territory 

 that its neat silver-green uniform is well known from Newfound- 

 land and New Jersey to Alaska and California. While its behavior 

 at times is such as to class it with the weeds, it certainly is not 

 pernicious. 



Silver-feather is a better name because of its plume-like 

 leaves, silvered beneath by long, silky hairs and usually green 

 on top. Sometimes, however, the upper surface has also a thin, 

 silky covering. This variation with its cause is nicely shown by 

 two patches beside the house of the writer. One is close to the 

 foundation on the south side in poor soil, exposed to full sunlight, 

 and the leaves are gray green. The other is on the west side 

 in rich loam, getting no sun until after eleven o'clock, and here 

 the upper surface is bright green. 



The yellow flowers are produced over a long season, as they 

 spring from the axils of small leaves on the strawberry-like runners 

 sent out in profusion. These runners are usually from one to 

 three feet long, and from them new plants start every few inches. 

 A mat of vegetation is soon formed. In producing and directing 

 their runners, the plants exhibit something very like intelligence, 

 as the following instance will show. On the shore of a little lake 

 in 1919 grew a vigorous Silver-weed. The dry season lowered 

 the water until a strip of sandy bottom eight feet wide was exposed. 

 The plant was crowded behind and on either side by competing 

 neighbors, but in front lay this land of promise, so, with concen- 

 trated energy, a single runner was pushed out straight towards 

 it. By the twenty-fourth of August an advance of over five feet 

 had been made, and eighteen young plants established on the line 

 of march were aiding the parent in its forward movement. 



