The flowers are bright golden yellow: they have five petals which open out like a rose, and in the centre there is a ring of yellow stamens with a knot of green seed-vessels among them.
In between each of these yellow petals you see a narrow green point appearing. These are sepals, and if you look at the back of the flower you find that the calyx is really a star made up of ten pointed green sepals.
The flowers grow on long, slender stalks. Both the flower and the leaves rise from what looks like another slender stalk creeping close to the ground. The creeping stalk comes from a root which resembles a small carrot. This root goes straight down into the ground, and it sends out three long, stalk-like creepers which lie along the surface. Wherever a bunch of leaves and flowers rises from the creeper, two or three little white roots go down into the ground. These take firm hold of the earth and help to keep the plant steady.
The leaves are beautiful. Each leaf is divided into five fingers, which are cut round the edges like the teeth of a saw. They are dark green, and have long, slender stalks like the flowers.
2. SILVER WEED
The Silver Weed prefers to grow in damp meadows and on the banks of ditches. You find it in abundance all summer.
The flowers are not unlike those of the Cinquefoil. They have five golden yellow petals which are not cup-shaped, but lie flat open. These petals are larger than those of the Cinquefoil, and you can only see the smallest tip of the green sepals appearing in between each.
There are really ten sepals in the calyx. Five of these are narrow little pointed leaves, but the others are each divided at the tip. If you remove all the yellow petals, this green calyx, with its ten green points, is just like a beautiful star.
The Silver Weed sends out long creepers. These are thicker than in the Cinquefoil, and are often tinged with pink.