The leaves on this cinquefoil are usually compounded
of one terminal and four side leaflets that are narrowly oblong,
an inch or less in length, and silky hairy. Sometimes there may
be seven leaflets pinnately, not digitately, arranged. Although
the shrubby cinquefoil prefers swamps and moist, rocky places to
dwell in, it wisely adapts itself, as globe-trotters should, to
whatever conditions it meets.
SILVERY or HOARY CINQUEFOIL (P. argentea), found in dry soil,
blooming from May to September from Canada to Delaware, Indiana,
Kansas, and Dakota, also in Europe and Asia, has yellow flowers
only about a quarter of an inch across, but foliage of special
beauty. From the tufted, branching, ascending stems, four to
twelve inches long, the finely cleft, five-foliate leaves are
spread on foot stems that diminish in size as they ascend, not to
let the upper leaves shut off the light from the lower ones.
These leaves are smooth and green above, silvery on the under
side, with fine white hairs, adapted for protection from
excessive sunlight and too rapid transpiration of precious
moisture.
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