Creeping Cinquefoil

Potentilla reptans

Rosaceae

31st May 2020

Potentilla reptans, from the Latin potens meaning ‘powerful’. This isn’t a buttercup! This 4 - 5 petalled flower sits close to the ground, sprouting up intermittently, in a rather chaotic fashion.

Domino Guide, ‘A rather course, low perennial, with far-creeping rooted runner to 1m. Flowers 17-25mm, solitary, on long slender stalks. Leaves palmate, with 3-5 toothed lanceolate leaflets’ 

There are however a lot of Potentillas that all look quite similar and Collins helps make the distinction, ‘Creeping perennial whose trailing stems root at the nodes (unlike Tormentil).’ 

This is key, Tormentil looks very similar, and we do have it somewhere in the garden. However Tormentil only has 4 petals, whereas Creeping Cinquefoil has five (the ‘cinque’ helps indicate this (cinq feuilles)) so this is also a useful way of working it out. 

Richard Mabey refers to it as a ‘larger and more aggressive species with reddish runners and larger five-petalled flowers, common in gardens and on waysides’ (than Tormentil) and I rather agree, it is not only quite a tough little flower, growing where it chooses, it doesn’t exactly exude delicacy, more a robustness, and an ‘I’m going to grow here, whether you like it or not’ attitude. And although it is a bright yellow, it is almost matte in texture and I think I prefer the glowing Buttercup!

Alice x