Snow Cinquefoil

Herbs perennial. Roots terete. Flowering stems erect or ascending, 5–25 cm tall, together with petioles white tomentose. Radical leaves 1.5–8 cm including petiole; stipules brown, membranous, abaxially sparsely pilose or glabrescent; leaf blade 3-foliolate; leaflets sessile or sometimes terminal one shortly petiolulate, ovate, obovate, or elliptic, 1–2 × 0.8–1.3 cm, abaxially white tomentose, inconspicuously veined, adaxially appressed pilose, base rounded or broadly cuneate, margin obtusely 3–6(or 7)-crenate or (6 or)7–14-serrate on each side, apex obtuse or acute; cauline leaves 1 or 2; stipules green, ovate, herbaceous, abaxially densely white tomentose, margin usually entire, rarely serrate; leaflets smaller than those of radical leaves. Inflorescence terminal, cymose, few flowered, rarely a solitary flower. Flowers 1–1.8 cm in diam.; pedicel 1–2 cm, white tomentose. Sepals triangular-ovate, apex acuminate or acute; epicalyx segments linear-lanceolate, shorter than sepals, abaxially spreading sericeous-pilose, apex obtuse. Petals yellow, obovate, apex emarginate. Style subterminal, base thickened and papillate, or inconspicuously thickened; stigma dilated. Achenes smooth. Fl. and fr. May–Sep.

Hebei, Jilin, Nei Mongol, Shanxi, Xinjiang [Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia; Europe, North America].

Alpine thickets, meadows on mountain slopes, grassy slopes, marsh margins, rocks; 1600--3400 m.

Potentilla nivea L. Sp. PL 499. 1753
Fragaria nivea Crantz, Inst. 2 : 179. 1766.
Potentilla nivea macrophylla Seringe, in DC. Prodr. 2 : 571. 1825.
Potentilla nivea pallidior Sw. Summa Veg. Scand. 19. 1814.
Potentilla nivea subviridis Ledeb. Fl. Ross. 2 : 57. 1844.
Potentilla nivea subquinata I^ange, Consp. Fl. Groenl. 9, in part. 1880.
Cespitose perennial, with the caudex covered with the brown scarious stipules ,and old leaves ; stems several, 1-2 dm. high, more or less tomentose or villous, few-leaved; basal leaves on petioles 2-5 cm. long, ternate, glabrate or slightly villous above, densely whitetomentose beneath (less densely so in var. pallidior) ; leaflets oblong-cuneate or obovate, 2-3 cm. long or (in var. macrophylla) broadly obovate and 3-6 cm. long, generally coarsely crenate; stem-leaves similar but smaller; cyme 2-6-flowered; flowers 12-15 mm. in diameter ; hypanthium 6-8 mm. wide in fruit, whitevillous or tomentose ; bractlets linear to lanceolate, slightly shorter than the lanceolate acute sepals, which are 5-6 mm. long; petals obcordate, exceeding the sepals, 6-8 mm. long ; stamens 20 ; pistils many ; styles filiform.
Type locality : Lapland [Sweden] .
Distribution : Arctic and alpine regions of the northern hemisphere, in America extending from Alaska to Greenland and Quebec, and south in the Rockies to Colorado.

Potentilla nipharga Rydberg-, sp. nov
Potentilla nivea dissecta S. Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 8 : 559 ,_ in part. 1873.
Potentilla nivea subquinata I^ange, Consp. Fl. Groenl. 9, in part. 1880.
Potentilla nivea arenosa I^ange, Consp. FL Groenl. 236. 1887-. Not. P. nivea arenosa Turcz. 1843.
Potentilla nivea pinnatifida £ange, Consp. Fl. Groenl. 236. 1887. Not P. nivea pinnatifida L-ehm.
1851. Potentilla nivea altaica Rydb. Mem. Dep. Bot. Columbia Univ. 2 : 86. 1898. Not P. altaica Bunge,
1830. Potentilla subquinata Rydb. Bull. Torrey Club 28 : 181, in part. 1901.
Perennial, with a short caudex ; stem 1-2 dm. high, sparingly villous ; leaves ternate or the uppermost unifoliolate, some of the basal ones rarely 5-foliolate ; petioles of the basal leaves 1-6 cm. long, villous ; leaflets obovate to oblanceolate, 1-2.5 cm. long, sparingly hairy and glabrous above, white-tomentose beneath, the terminal one sometimes petiolulate, deeply cleft into lanceolate or lance-oblong divisions ; stem-leaves short-petioled ; stipules lanceolate ; inflorescence open ; hypanthium villous, in fruit 4-6 mm. wide ; bractlets narrowly linear, 4-6 mm. long; sepals linear-lanceolate, of about the same length; petals obcordate, 5-7 mm, long; stamens about 20 ; pistils many ; styles filiform.
Type collected at Fort Good Hope on the Mackenzie River, I. S. Onion (herb. N. Y. Bot. Gard.) . Distribution : Arctic America from the Mackenzie to Greenland, and in the Rockies south to Utah.

Potentilla nivea, called the snow cinquefoil, snowy cinquefoil, and villous cinquefoil, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Potentilla, native to Subarctic Asia, North America, Greenland, and Europe, and the Subalpine Rockies and Alps. It comes in many ploidy levels; 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x and 10x.