Cut Leaf Cinquefoil

Potentilla millefolia Rydb. Bull. Torrey Club 23 : 433. 1896
PotentiUa plaitensis Greene, Fl. Fran. 1 : 64. 1891. Not P. plattensis Nutt. 1840.
Iyow, prostate or spreading perennial ; stems numerous from the caudex, about 1 dm. long, few-leaved, only a little exceeding the basal leaves, appressed-strigose, often sparingly so ; lower stipules lanceolate, scarious and brown, the upper ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, green, often 2-3-cleft ; basal leaves pinnate, of many leaflets, sparingly strigose-ciliate, nearly as long as the stems ; stem -leaves much reduced ; leaflets divided nearly to the base into linear-subulate divisions, which therefore look as if verticillate ; pedicels slender, 1-2 cm. long, in fruit abruptly reflexed below the strigose-hirsute hypanthium ; bractlets and sepals lanceolate, acute, the former slightly smaller, sometimes 3-lobed, about 5 mm. long ; corolla 12-18 mm. in diameter ; petals obcordate, deeply notched, longer than the sepals ; stamens about 20-; achene smooth, with a slender filiform nearly terminal style.
Type locality : California.
Distribution : Mountains of California.

Potentilla millefolia is a species of cinquefoil known by the common names cutleaf cinquefoil and feather cinquefoil. It is native to Oregon, Nevada and eastern California, where it grows in moist mountain meadows and similar habitat. The plant produces a basal rosette from a taproot, then a decumbent stem up to about 20 centimeters in maximum length. The elongated leaves are made up of several overlapping pairs of deeply lobed leaflets. The inflorescence at the tip of the stem is a cyme of a few flowers, each with usually five yellow petals under a centimeter long.