Potentilla hippiana is a prostate herb with pinnately divided serrate leaflets. The flowers are yellow and usually in small clusters. The petals have a minute notch at the apex (emarginate.) Potentilla hippiana grows in high elevation moist meadows and can form a ground cover.

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Perennial, 6-50 cm tall; stems ascending to erect; herbage silky-pubescent; caudex branched; taproot thick.

Leaves: Mostly basal, crowded, some cauline, alternate, pinnately 5-13 foliate, leaflets oblanceolate, 1.2-4 cm long, the upper 3 largest, greenish and silky-pubescent above, densely white-tomentose beneath, margin toothed to deeply cleft for most of the length, base wedge-shaped, apex rounded to acute; stipules ovate to lanceolate; blades petiolate.

Flowers: Inflorescence a cyme, open, tomentose to villous; flowers few to many; hypanthium shallowly cup-shaped, villous externally; bractlets lanceolate to ovate, 2-5 mm long; sepals ovate to deltate-lanceolate, 3-6.5 mm long; petals oblanceolate to broadly ovate, 5-10 mm long, yellow, the apex rounded, truncate, or shallowly notched; stamens 20; pistils numerous, the style 1.4-2.3 mm long; flowers June-August.

Fruits: Achene, 1.4-1.6 mm long, smooth.

Ecology: Meadows, ponderosa pine and mixed conifer forests, aspen stands, alpine habitats; 2000-3500 m (6500-11500 ft); Apache, Coconino, Navajo counties; western and southern Canada, intermountain and upper midwestern U.S.

Notes: Potentilla crinita (bearded cinquefoil) is similar to P. hippiana, but the leaflets are silky-strigose, green to grayish green beneath and more densely silky-strigose on the lower midvein and margins; and the margin of the leaflets is entire for most of the length, toothed usually only near the apex. It occurs in meadows, pinyon- juniper woodlands, and ponderosa pine forests. Drymocallis arizonica (sticky cinquefoil, glandular cinquefoil) [=P. glandulosa] is a perennial, 10-50 cm tall, with erect stems and glandular-pubescent herbage; leaves are pinnately 5-9 foliate, sparsely pubescent to sometimes glabrous, green on both surfaces; leaflets are broadly obovate, ovate, or lanceolate, margins coarsely dentate-serrate; petals are yellow to cream; stamens are 25-30. It occurs in montane meadows and coniferous forests up to alpine tundra. A lotion of woolly cinquefoil is used by the Navajo to treat burns, and poultices made from fresh leaves are applied to injuries.

Editor: Springer et al. 2008

Much like P. effusa; lfls more sericeous than tomentose above, and increasing regularly in size toward the summit of each lf; sep 5-7 mm, little exceeding the bractlets, slightly shorter than the pet; 2n=42-98. Dry hills, prairies, and plains; Keweenaw Point, Mich.; w. Minn. to Alta. and N.M. June-Aug.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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