142 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



nearly flat, dry, rarely conical and spongy, not separating from the 

 calyx. Achenes dry, with the styles deciduous. 



Herbs, mostly perennial, rarely shrubs, with ternate, digitate, or 

 pinnate leaves. Stipules of the lower leaves adnate to the petioles. 

 Flowers yellow, white, or more rarely red or purple, solitary or 

 in terminal cymes. 



The name of tliis genus comes from the word poiens, powerful, from the supposed 

 medical qualities of some of the species. 



Sub-Genus I.— SIBBALDIA. Linn, 



Petals strap-shaped and entire, or none. Stamens definite, 5 

 to 10. E,eceptacle concave, dry. Carpels 5 to 10. 



SPECIES I.— POTENTILLA SIBBALDIA. 



Plate CCCCXXVI. 



Sibbaldia procumbens, Linn. Bab. Man. Brit. Bot. eJ. v. p. 94. Benth. Handbook 

 Brit. Fl. p. 195. Hook. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 132. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 897. 



Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ, et Ilelv. ed. ii. p. 244. Fries, Sum. Veg. Scand. p. 45. Gr. & 

 Godr. Fl. de Fr. Vol. I. p. 521. 



Ptootstock branched, each division terminating in a barren leafy 

 tuft, riowering-stems lateral. Radical leaves ternate; leaflets 

 obovate or oblong, truncate and 3-toothed at the apex, entire on 

 the margins. Flowers few, in terminal compact corymbose cymes, 

 frequently with 1 or moi'e small cymes beneath, so as to form a 

 very short panicle. Petals linear, sometimes absent. Stamens 

 commonly 5 to 7. 



On rocky debris and on the rounded summits of mountains ; 

 common in the Scotch Highlands, extending from Peeblesshire and 

 Stirlingshire to Shetland. 



Scotland. Perennial. Summer. 



Pootstock woody, tortuous, branched, clothed with brown scales, 

 the remains of the stipules of the leaves of preceding years. Leaves 

 in a tuft terminating the rootstock, on petioles 1 to 3 inches long. 

 Leaflets-! ^^(i^ to 1 inch long, the central one shortly stalked; 

 apex nearly as broad as tlie broadest part of the leaflet, truncate, with 

 3, rarely 4 or 5, large nearly equal teeth. Flowering-stems from 

 the axils of the leaves of the preceding year (and consequently 

 from below the tuft of barren leaves), leafless, or with one or more 

 ternate leaves like those of the barren tuft, or with the leaflets 



