ROSACEA. 



251 



3. Tormentil Potentil. Potentilla Tormentilla, Sibth. 

 (Fig. 309.) 



{Tormentilla officinalis, Eng. Bot. t. 863.) 



Koot stock thick and woody. Stems 

 erect, or procumbent at the base, several 

 times forked, more or less silky-hairy as 

 well as the leaves. Lower leaves often 

 shortly stalked, and like those of the 

 creeping P., but the upper ones always 

 sessile, consisting of 3, or rarely 5, 

 deeply -toothed leaflets. Peduncles in 

 the forks of the stem, or in the axils of 

 the upper leaves, forming a loose, leafy, 

 terminal cyme. Flowers small, bright 

 yellow, and mostly with 4 petals ; the 

 first one, however, of each stem has oc- 

 casionally 5. 



On heaths, moors, and pastures, in 

 open woods, etc., throughout Europe 

 and Eussian Asia, to the Arctic regions. 

 One of the most abundant and most 

 generally diffused British plants. Fl. 



summer. The Tormentilla reptans (Eng. Bot. t. 864) is a more pro- 

 cumbent variety, occasionally creeping at the base, with rather larger 

 flowers, more frequently breaking out into 5 petals, and forms some 

 approach to the creeping P. ; but the really intermediate forms men- 

 tioned above are of very rare occurrence. 



Fig. 309. 



4. Hoary Potentil. Potentilla argentea, Linn. (Fig. 310.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 89.) 



Stems decumbent at the base, ascending, and forked above. Lower 

 leaves on long stalks, the upper ones nearly sessile, composed of 5 

 wedge-shaped or sometimes obovate leaflets, with a very few deep 

 teeth or lobes, and remarkable for the close white down which covers 

 their under side as well as the stems. Flowers in a loosely forked, 

 leafy corymb or panicle, rather small, with 5 yellow petals. 



