[*][*] Style lateral; purple petals (shorter than the broad calyx) somewhat persistent; disk thick and hairy; achenes glabrous; hairy receptacle becoming large and spongy.
10. P. palústris, Scop. (Marsh Five-Finger.) Stems stout, ascending from a decumbent rooting perennial base (½–2° long), glabrous below; leaves pinnate; leaflets 5–7, oblong, serrate, lighter colored and more or less pubescent beneath; flowers few in an open cyme; calyx (1´ broad) dark purple inside.—Cool bogs, N. J. to N. Ind., Ill., Minn., and northward. (Eu.)
[*][*][*] Style attached below the middle; achenes and receptacle densely villous; woody perennials.
11. P. fruticòsa, L. (Shrubby Cinque-foil.) Stem erect, shrubby (1–4° high), much branched; leaves pinnate, leaflets 5–7, crowded, oblong-lanceolate, entire, silky, usually whiter beneath and the margins revolute; petals yellow, orbicular.—Wet grounds, Lab. to N. J., west to Minn., northern Iowa, and north and westward. June–Sept. (Eu.)
12. P. tridentàta, Ait. (Three-toothed C.) Stems low (1–10´ high), rather woody at base, tufted, ascending, cymosely several-flowered; leaves palmate; leaflets 3, wedge-oblong, nearly smooth, thick, coarsely 3-toothed at the apex; petals white; achenes and receptacle very hairy.—Coast of N. Eng. from Cape Cod northward, Norfolk, Ct. (Barbour), and mountain-tops of the Alleghanies; also shores of the upper Great Lakes, and N. Iowa, Wisc., and Minn.
§ 3. Styles filiform, lateral; peduncles axillary, solitary, 1-flowered; achenes glabrous; receptacle very villous; herbaceous perennials, with yellow flowers.
13. P. Anserìna, L. (Silver-Weed.) Spreading by slender many-jointed runners, white-tomentose and silky-villous; leaves all radical, pinnate; leaflets 7–21, with smaller ones interposed, oblong, sharply serrate, silky tomentose at least beneath; bractlets and stipules often incisely cleft; peduncles elongated.—Brackish marshes, river-banks, etc., New Eng. to N. J., N. Ind., Minn., and northward. (Eu.)
14. P. Canadénsis, L. (Common Cinque-foil or Five-Finger.) Stems slender and decumbent or prostrate, or sometimes erect; pubescence villous, often scanty; leaves ternate, but apparently quinate by the parting of the lateral leaflets; leaflets cuneate-oblong or -obovate, incisely serrate, nearly glabrous above; bractlets entire.—Dry soil; common and variable. Apr.–July.—Often producing summer runners.
Calyx flattish, 5-cleft, with 5 bractlets. Petals 5, linear-oblong, minute. Stamens 5, inserted alternate with the petals into the margin of the woolly disk which lines the base of the calyx. Achenes 5–10; styles lateral.—Low and depressed mountain perennials; included by some in Potentilla. (Dedicated to Dr. Robert Sibbald, professor at Edinburgh at the close of the 17th century.)