114 POTENTILLA FRUTICOSA. SHRUBBY CINQUE-FOIL. 



the orthography of the latter is French, and it is a matter of 

 surprise that a plant, so common in England as is the Cinque- 

 foil, in numerous forms, should yet seem to have had no dis- 

 tinctively English name whatever. 



Most of the Potcntillas, or Cinque-foils, are creeping plants, 

 or herbaceous plants, with evergreen foliage, such as is the 

 strawberry plant, to which family, indeed, the Cinque-foils arc 

 closely allied ; but the Potcntilla frnticosa takes on a woody 

 character, and becomes a small bush, and in this is an exception 

 to all the rest of the family, of which there are nearly a hundred 

 species. Some botanists have, indeed, tried to make several 

 species out of the one now under discussion. In Europe, where 

 it also stows wild, it has lon^ been known ; and when Pursh 

 came to this country, in the beginning of the present century, 

 and found the plant here, he believed it to be distinct, and 

 named it Potcntilla Jloribunda. Nestler also thought the Rus- 

 sian plant distinct from the general European form, and called 

 it P. davurica. Schlechtendal again names a kind with narrow 

 leaves P. tenuifolia. But the best authors in Europe, and all in 

 America, agree in considering all these forms as mere varieties 

 of our present P. frziticosa. 



The student will notice, on examining the circuit of the leaves 

 round the stem of Potcntilla, that five leaves form a complete cir- 

 cuit, or a verticil, and he will perceive the operation of the same 

 law in the formation of the flower, which is, indeed, nothing but a 

 suddenly arrested branch, the petals and sepals being transformed 

 leaves. He therefore finds a double row of sepals of five each, and 

 five petals in the flower, and the stamens generally some multiple 

 of five. When any of the number is wanting in these cases, it is 

 generally because the convolving and depressing growth has 

 been so rapid as to entirely obliterate some of the petals, or in 

 botanical language, because they have disappeared by abortion. 

 The gradual retardation of the wave growth is very prettily 

 illustrated here. Although most Cinque-foils have but five leaf- 

 lets, the Shrubby Cinque-foil has often seven ; but when growth- 



