A Snob Notices Cinquefoil

I admit it; I'm somewhat of snob where wildflowers are concerned. White wildflowers I almost certainly ignore. They must be something really out of the ordinary for me to show any interest. Yellow wildflowers? There are just so many of them, I can't possibly take them all seriously. Let's face it, there are too many blues and scarlets and oranges and purples out there to spend much time on anything yellow. And in California, well, forget it. I'm a wildflower snob, pure and simple...

...which explains why I've paid so little attention to cinquefoil; any type of cinquefoil. I don't know that I've noticed a single species of cinquefoil since leaving Ohio. At least in Ohio I was aware of them; they were the yellow wildflowers I was snubbing. But they deserve a little attention, for their sheer tenacity if nothing else.

Cinquefoil is from the French, and means "five-leaved", which is a misnomer. Stems do not bear five leaves but instead a single leaf usually with five deeply cut lobes. (On the other hand, each flower does have five petals.) They are members of the Rose Family Rosaceae, in the Potentillagenus, which consists of more than 120 species in North America. The generic Potentilla means "little powerful one."

Some species of cinquefoil hybridize. Populations of intermediate plants turn up frequently and would remind me, if I only noticed them, that they are often difficult to identify.

"Sheer tenacity" in a wildflower suggests unwelcome and unwanted weediness. Such is the case with Rough-fruited Cinquefoil (P. recta), which is the one cinquefoil in Ohio I nearly noticed several times. Because it thrives in poor, dry soil, and livestock show no interest in it when foraging, this European native goes about its business as it sees fit. It is typically found along roadsides and in dry fields. I nearly noticed it on more than one occasion because it grows to about 2' tall, and because of its flowers, which are about 1" in diameter and a nearly-noticeable pale yellow.

Of this plant and its fruit, Thoreau wrote, "You are surprised and delighted to see this handsome profusion in hollows so dry and usually so barren and bushes commonly so fruitless. The berries are peculiar in that the red ones are nearly as pleasant-tasted as the more fully ripe dark-purple ones."

Rough-fruited Cinquefoil blooms from May into August. Its range stretches from Ontario and Nova Scotia south into Virginia, west to Arkansas and Kansas, and north to Minnesota.

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