168 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



The cinquefoil is a charming plant for the wild 

 garden. Its flowers are as large and as golden as 

 any buttercup, with a refinement of form and silki- 

 ness of texture that those popular favourites might 

 envy. The leaf of the cinquefoil hence the name 

 of the plant is composed of five radiating leaflets, 

 and is like a very diminutive horse-chestnut leaf. 

 The plant is a notable trailer, and roots as it runs, 

 so that it quickly covers a large surface of ground, 

 and may possibly prove a little too rampant for the 

 peace and well-doing of other plants, unless every 

 now and then thinned out a bit. We have em- 

 ployed it as a bordering to a flower-bed, letting 

 it run freely along, but suppressing any lateral 

 developments that would tend to stray over the 

 bed or path, the result being a charming wealth 

 of glowing blossoms and delicate foliage. An 

 alternative name for it is the five-leaved grass, and 

 " of some it is called pentadactylon," while in 

 Germany it is the Fiinffingerkraut, and in France 

 the quintefeuille. Botanically the cinquefoil is the 

 Potentilla reptans. The generic name is from the 

 Latin potens, powerful, in allusion to the medicinal 

 properties of this and some other species in the 

 genus. The root of the cinquefoil is strongly 

 astringent, and was formerly much used in the 

 treatment of ague. Turner J quotes the practice 



1 The author of " A new Herball, wherein are conteyned 

 the names of Herbes in Greke, Latin, Englysh, Duch, French, 



