132 SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



Alchemilla vulgaris L. Common Lady's Mantle. 



Rootstock nearly black, stout. Stem 6-18 inches, ascending. 

 Root-leaves reniform, 6-9 lobed, serrate, 2-6 inches across, green 

 on both sides ; stem-leaves smaller. Stipules connate, toothed. 

 Flowers very small, yellow-green, rarely perfect, in irregular 

 racemes or cymes. Pedicels short. A variable plant, and in the 

 mountains usually dwarf, with pubescent or silky leaves and 

 petioles. 



Moist pastures in hilly and sub-alpine districts. May, June. 



Distribution. — Central, Northern, and Arctic Europe, N. and W, 

 Asia, Kashmir, Greenland, Labrador. 



Alchemilla Hoppeana Biiser. 



Plant 4-10 inches high, forming compact tufts. Stems i-ij 

 times as long as the radical leaves. Leaves glabrous, dull green 

 above, silky and silvery beneath, with 7-9 leaflets, some of which 

 are free and others irregularly cut to the base, oblong-lanceolate, 

 finely serrated at the top. Flowers in clusters forming a rather 

 loose spike. 



Limestone slopes and rocky pastures in the Alps and sub-Alps. 

 June, July. 



Distribution. Pyrenees, Spain, Italy, French, Swiss, and Tyrolese 

 Alps. 



Various other species of this little understood genus are found 

 in the sub- Alps, e.g. Alchemilla glaberrima, A. flabellaia, A. pu- 

 bescens, A. hybrida, and A. alpestris. 



POTENTILLA L. 



Herbs with perennial tufted stock and often creeping runners. 

 Flowering stems usually annual. Leaves of 3 or more digitate, 

 distinct, segments. Peduncles i-flowered, solitary or forming a 

 dichotomous cyme. Calyx free, double, i.e. of twice as many 

 divisions as there are petals. Petals 5, or rarely 4. Stamens 

 numerous. Carpels numerous, small, i-seeded, crowded on a 

 receptacle, which never becomes succulent. 



A large genus extending over the whole of the northern hemi- 

 sphere without the tropics, penetrating the arctic regions, and 

 descending the Andes to their extremity. 



Potentilla caulescens L. 



Stem weak, prostrate, ascending or erect, many-leaved, cymosely 

 branched at the apex, many-flowered, covered with patent hairs 

 like the leaf-stalks. Root-leaves and lower stem-leaves palmately 

 5-partite, the root-leaves shorter than those of the stem; upper 

 stem-leaves tripartite, passing into bracts. Segments elongated 

 or wedge-shaped, serrated above the middle, silky-villous below 



