ROSACE/E 491 



Potentilla anserina, L. (fig. 316). 



Primary root tapering, wiry, with short lateral rootlets, sub- 

 flexuous. 



Hypocotyl short, tapering indistinguishably into the root. 



Cotyledons small, oval, obtuse, glabrous, 3'5 mm. long, 2-25 mm. 

 broad ; petiole flattened above or slightly grooved, convex beneath, 

 3 mm. long. 



Stem short, herbaceous, throwing off procumbent, stoloniferous 

 flowering branches. 



Leaves compound (No. 1 simple), radical, green above and hairy 

 in a young state, more or less densely silky and silvery below and 

 on both surfaces in the adult, very densely beneath ; petioles semi- 

 terete, channelled above, silky, ultimately densely so ; stipules 

 adnate to the petiole for two-thirds of 

 their length, and connate throughout 

 the other third, forming a sheath around 

 the bud or next younger leaf, ultimately 

 splitting and becoming lacerated along 

 their edges on the side of the bud or 

 leaf opposite to the leaf to which they 

 belong, pale brown, scarious, glabrous 

 or thinly hairy. 



No. 1. Eeniform-triangular, rounded 

 at the base, obscurely five-nerved, three-, 

 five-, to seven-toothed. 



No. 2. Subpinnately or digitately tri- 



foliolate. FIG. 316. Potentilla anserina. 



No. 3. Pinnately five-foliolate ; basal Half nat - size - 



pair of leaflets much the smallest, deeply tridentate ; terminal 

 leaflet oval, incise-dentate, or serrate. 



No. 4. Pinnately seven- foliolate ; leaflets incise-serrate, decreasing 

 in size from the terminal three to the basal pair, which are small 

 and three- to four-toothed. 



No. 5. Interruptedly pinnate ; leaflets incise-serrate except the 

 miniature ones ; terminal leaflet oval, next pair oblong, next pair 

 minute, lanceolate, aristate, entire ; fourth pair from apex oblong, 

 then a minute leaflet, then an ovate pair, and at the base two minute 

 ones. 



Ultimate leaves obovate-oblong or oblong, interruptedly impari- 

 pinnate, with numerous alternate and opposite leaflets, which attain 

 their maximum size above the middle of the leaf, and are smallest 

 at the base with the exception of the miniature intermediate ones, 



