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Spreading Cinquefoil
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Spreading Cinquefoil
ative Photo: Nidhan Singh
Common name: Spreading Cinquefoil
Botanical name: Potentilla supina    Family: Rosaceae (Rose family)
Synonyms: Comarum flavum, Fragaria supina, Potentilla prostrata

Spreading Cinquefoil is an annual or biennial herb. Flowering stems are spreading, rising, or erect, branched, 20–50 cm tall. Leaves at the base are 4–15 cm including the stalk. Leaves are 3-foliolate or pinnate with 2–5 pairs of leaflets. Leaflets are alternate or opposite, stalkless, both surfaces green, oblong or obovate-oblong, 1–2.5 x 0.5–1.5 cm, base cuneate or broadly so, margin toothed. Stem leaves resemble the basal ones but pairs of leaflets fewer higher up stem. Flowers are borne in corymb-like cymes at the end of branches or in leaf axils on lower part of flowering stem. Flowers are 6–8 mm in diameter. Flower stalk is 0.8–1.5 cm, densely pubescent. Sepals are triangular-ovate, pointed. Epicalyx segments are oblong-elliptic or elliptic-lanceolate, nearly equaling or slightly longer than sepals. Petals are yellow, obovate, slightly shorter than sepals, tip notched. Seedpods are cylindric, pointed. Apart from northern plains, Spreading Cinquefoil is also found in the Himalayas, at altitudes of 1000-1400 m. Flowering: March–October.

Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh Photographed in Panipat, Haryana & Wazirabad, Delhi.

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