Posts Tagged ‘leaf shape’
Silvery Cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea L.)
Last month, whenever I went to get the mail, I was waylaid by a little plant sprawling next to the row of boxes. He was so charming, once I forgot to get my mail because I was examining his flowers and leaves! There should be a sign saying ‘No Loitering’.
The plant was Silvery Cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea L.). As its name suggests, Silvery Cinquefoil is covered with fine silver hairs, giving it a downy appearance. It has fine-toothed, five-fingered leaves, palmately compound, and five-petalled yellow flowers.
I have always liked the various species of Potentilla, interesting for the variety of their leaves. You can see how diverse these shapes are in a page from Roland and Smth’s Flora of Nova Scotia. The reddish pressed leaf in the scanned book, for example, is Silverweed (Potentilla Anserina L.). My post for July 13, 2012, ‘coastal barren, coastal bog’, shows the Three-toothed Cinquefoil (Potentilla tridentata Ait.) https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/coastal-barren-coastal-bog/ .
various leaf shapes of Potentilla in a page of The Flora of Nova Scotia (A.E. Roland and E.C. Smith, Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax, 1969) … the pressed leaf is from Potentilla Anserina or Silverweed, a coastal species of Potentilla.
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Five-Finger
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metal leaf and yellow,
he leans on the post-box
palms extended
potent, persuasive
a bit of a thug
want your mail?
pay me,
in silver
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© Jane Tims 2012
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