182 FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 
Radical leaves, with slender footstalks, and five pinnate leaflets. Stem- 
leaves with three leaflets, few, almost stalkless. Flowers few, 1 inch 
across, white; May and June. A native of Europe and Wales. 
P. RUSSELLIANA (Russell’s). A hybrid, probably the offspring of 
P. atrosanguinea x nepalensis. Stem 1 foot. Leaves trefoils. Flowers 
nearly 2 inches across, of a rich blood-red colour; July to September. 
Many other hybrids and varieties will be found in the lists of good firms. 
The Cinquefoils succeed as a rule in ordinary garden 
soil, but they prefer one that is sandy in character. The 
most appropriate situation for most of the species is the rock-garden or 
a stony bank. P. comarum, however, is used to a marsh habitat, and it 
would be well to give it a damp position and mix peat or cocoanut-fibre 
with the soil about its roots. They come readily from seeds or by 
dividing the roots; in the case of hybrids, of course, the latter method 
of propagation must be relied upon. 
Description of The upper portion of a stem of Potentilla atrosan- 
iste 8. guinea, with a couple of radical leaves. It will be seen 
that the name Cinquefoil is a misnomer in this case, but popularly 
the large stipules also count as leaflets, and so help to constitute the 
five-fold leaf, 
Culture, 
AVENS 
Natural Order Rosacea. Genus Gewin 
GEUM (the old Latin name, said to be derived from the Greek geuo, to 
give to taste, the roots of Geum urbanum being aromatic). A genus of 
about thirty erect-growing, hardy, perennial herbs. They have large 
dissected radical leaves, of which the terminal leaflet is always much 
larger than the others, The stipules grow to the leaf-stalk. The honey ed 
grow solitarily or in corymbs, and are white, yellow, or red in colour. 
Like Potentilla, the calyx has, in addition to its five lobes, as many little 
bracts immediately below it. Petals five; stamens many, crowded; 
carpels numerous with thread-like styles. When these carpels have 
developed into a round head of achenes, the styles in some species have 
become hooked hairs, which catch in the fur of animals, and so secure 
distribution. The Species are found throughout the temperate and cold 
regions of the earth. 
Two species of Gewm are indigenous in Britain: G. 
urbanwm, common in every wood and hedgerow, and @. 
rivale, less plentiful by the sides of streams. The former has small 
