Bush Cinquefoil

Bush Cinquefoil

Potentilla fruiticosa

Rosaceae (Rose Family)

▲ ▼ mature flowering shrubs

▲ ▼ flowers

▲ leaves

▲ ▼ white-flowering cultivar

Location on or near campus: not known

Potentilla fruticosa: Bush Cinquefoil, Potentilla

• leaves alternate, deciduous, simple and palmately to pinnately lobed, or palmately to pinnately compound, with 3-7 lobes or leaflets; entire leaf is 1-1.5 inches long and slightly more narrow, and lobes/leaflets are lanceolate, pale green, blue-green or dark green above, and lighter below; leaves sometimes shiny on top side, or with silky hairs
• stems slender, brown with peeling bark, even when young
• flowers single or in cymes in axils of leaves, usually bright yellow, but some cultivars have more pale-yellow, orange, red or white flowers; mainly flowering in mid to late summer, sometimes into fall
• grows 1-4 feet tall and equally wide or wider in irregular, mounded shape
• prefers full sun to part-shade, moist-well-drained soil (not wet);
• generally seems to do better in northern Missouri and northward than in southwest Missouri, has not survived well in southwest Missouri
• slow to medium growth rate