Ashy Cinquefoil

Herbs perennial. Roots robust, terete. Flowering stems erect or ascending, 12–40 cm tall, together with petioles villous, pubescent, and sparsely tomentose. Radical leaves usually withered after anthesis; stipules brown, membranous, abaxially villous; leaf blade palmately 5(–7)-foliolate; leaflets adaxially green, obovate-oblong or obovate-lanceolate, abaxially canescent tomentose, glabrescent, adaxially appressed pilose, base cuneate, margin coarsely regularly serrate, apex obtuse; cauline leaves resembling radical ones but smaller and petiole shorter to absent; stipules green, ovate-lanceolate, herbaceous, abaxially tomentose and villous, margin entire or 1- or 2-serrate. Inflorescence corymbose-cymose or paniculate-cymose, laxly many flowered. Flowers ca. 1 cm in diam.; pedicel 1–1.5 cm, sparsely tomentose and villous. Sepals triangular-lanceolate to oblong-ovate, apex acute to acuminate; epicalyx segments linear-lanceolate, shorter than or rarely nearly equaling sepals, abaxially villous and pubescent, apex acute. Petals yellow, ovate, slightly longer than sepals, apex emarginate or subrounded. Style subterminal, base thickened; stigma slightly thickened. Achenes rugose. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep.

Xinjiang [C Asia, C and S Europe].

Wet places on mountain slopes, flood lands; 1000--1300 m.

Potentilla canescens Besser.