Alchemilla Vulgaris L. Common Lady's Mantle

Rootstock nearly black, stout. Stem 6-18 inches, ascending. Root-leaves reniform, 6-9 lobed, serrate, 2-6 inches across, green on both sides; stem-leaves smaller. Stipules connate, toothed. Flowers very small, yellow-green, rarely perfect, in irregular racemes or cymes. Pedicels short. A variable plant, and in the mountains usually dwarf, with pubescent or silky leaves and petioles.

Moist pastures in hilly and sub-alpine districts. May, June.

Distribution

Central, Northern, and Arctic Europe, N. and W. Asia, Kashmir, Greenland, Labrador.

Alchemilla Hoppeana Biiser

Plant 4-10 inches high, forming compact tufts. Stems 1-1 1/2 times as long as the radical leaves. Leaves glabrous, dull green above, silky and silvery beneath, with 7-9 leaflets, some of which are free and others irregularly cut to the base, oblong-lanceolate, finely serrated at the top. Flowers in clusters forming a rather loose spike.

Limestone slopes and rocky pastures in the Alps and sub-Alps. June, July.

Distribution

Pyrenees, Spain, Italy, French, Swiss, and Tyrolese Alps.

Various other species of this little understood genus are found in the sub-Alps, e.g. Alchemilla glaberrima, A. flabellata, A. pu-bescens, A. hybrida, and A. alpestris.

Potentilla L

Herbs with perennial tufted stock and often creeping runners. Flowering stems usually annual. Leaves of 3 or more digitate, distinct, segments. Peduncles 1-flowered, solitary or forming a dichotomous cyme. Calyx free, double, i.e. of twice as many divisions as there are petals. Petals 5, or rarely 4. Stamens numerous. Carpels numerous, small, 1-seeded, crowded on a receptacle, which never becomes succulent.

A large genus extending over the whole of the northern hemisphere without the tropics, penetrating the arctic regions, and descending the Andes to their extremity.

Potentilla Caulescens L

Stem weak, prostrate, ascending or erect, many-leaved, cymosely branched at the apex, many-flowered, covered with patent hairs like the leaf-stalks. Root-leaves and lower stem-leaves palmately 5-partite, the root-leaves shorter than those of the stem; upper stem-leaves tripartite, passing into bracts. Segments elongated or wedge-shaped, serrated above the middle, silky-villous below and at the margin. Petals narrow, wedge-shaped, white. Stamens and carpels hairy.

Calcareous Alpine and sub-alpine rocks up to 8000 feet. July, August. Carpathians, Jura, Alps, Pyrenees.

Potentilla Rupestris L

Flower-stems 10-18 inches high, springing from an almost woody base. Leaves chiefly radical, pinnate, the common stalk rather long; leaflets 5 or 7, ovate, toothed, green; stem-leaves few and smaller, often with only three leaflets. Flowers few, rather large, milk-white, forming a loose corymb.

Rocks and hilly places in the sub-Alps; local. May, June.

Distribution

Alps, Jura, Pyrenees, Cevennes, Auvergne, Corsica, most of mountainous Europe as far north as Sweden. Western Asia. Rare in Britain.