Trailing Tormentil
Scientific name: Potentilla anglica Laichard.
Diagnostic features
Perennial, with persistent basal leaf-rosette and decumbent to procumbent stems to 80cm rooting at nodes late in season.
Lower stem-leaves with 3-5 leaflets, with petioles 1-2cm (upper leaves with markedly shorter petioles).
Flowers solitary in stem-leaf axils, some with 4 others with 5 petals, 12-18mm across.
Carpels 20-50.
Achenes glabrous.
Chromosome number: 2n=56.
Habitat
Native; wood-borders, heaths and dry banks.
Distribution
Scattered throughout Bl North to North Aberdeen, but over-recorded for Potentilla mixta(x).
This species is keyed out on Page 2291 in the Text Key.
Hybrids
- Potentilla x suberecta Zimmeter (= Potentilla erecta x Potentilla anglica) occurs frequently with the parents in British Isles. It resembles Potentilla erecta in habit but the stems may rarely root at nodes late in the season and it is intermediate in leaflet-, petal- and carpel-number, petiole-length and flower-size. It is partially fertile, with less than10 achenes per flower. Chromosome number: 2n=42. |
