Southwest Colorado Wildflowers, Potentilla

Potentillas (commonly called "Cinquefoils") are abundant through many vegetative zones in the San Juans and other mountains of the Four Corners and their bright yellow flowers are a common sight to hikers. Their are several dozen species of Potentilla in the Four Corners area; they hybridize and are difficult to distinguish.

Linnaeus named the genus in 1753. "Potentilla" is derived from "potent", as some members of the genus were believed to have potent curative powers. "Cinquefoil" is from the Latin "quinque" (five) and "folium" (leaf) for the five-parted leaflet.

See Potentilla penslvanica and P. plattensis, Potentilla rubricaulis, and Drymocallis arguta.

The pictured Potentilla concinna is growing at 11,000 feet in rocky terrain, but the species also grows in the Pines of the foothills and mountains. At 11,000 feet the plant occurs in small tufts to seven inches across and three inches high. It is a bit larger at lower elevations. (The leaves and flower bud in the lower left belong to Packera werneriifolia.)

As the photograph at the right shows, leaves often curl, are densely hairy on the back and darker green and sparsely hairy on top, and have smooth sides and three teeth on the tip ("bicrenata", "twice notched").

Richardson named the species P. concinna in 1823 from a specimen he collected "on the plains of the Saskatchawan" on the Franklin Expedition of 1819-1821. Per Axel Rydberg named the species P. bicrenata in 1896 from a specimen collected by C. D. Walcott in New Mexico in 1883. The designation "Potentilla concinna variety bicrenata" was given by Welsh and Johnston in 1982. "Concinnus" means "pretty".

Synonym: Potentilla concinna variety bicrenata. Potentilla concinna. (Cinquefoil)
Rosaceae (Rose Family)

Foothills to alpine. Openings, woodlands. Summer.
Sharkstooth Trail, June 28, 2007.

Potentilla hippiana (Cinquefoil)
Rosaceae (Rose Family)

Montane. Meadows, woodlands. Summer.
Lower Calico Trail, June 16, 2004.

Potentilla hippiana likes dry sites, its flower stems are from a few inches to twenty inches tall, and its leaves are green on top and silvery on the back. Leaves often curl, and, very important in identifying this species, its leaves are pinnate (arranged ladder-like) rather than palmate (see last photograph below). This is a very common Potentilla in the mountains of the Four Corners states.

Johann Georg Lehmann (1792-1860) named this species in 1827 from a specimen collected by Edwin James in 1820 near the "sources of the Platte". Carl Hippio was, in Weber's words, "a revered colleague of Lehmann". (More biographical information.)

Potentilla hippiana (Cinquefoil)
Rosaceae (Rose Family)

Montane. Meadows, woodlands. Summer.
Scotch Creek Road, July 1, 2004.

Potentilla hippiana (Cinquefoil)
Rosaceae (Rose Family)

Montane. Meadows, woodlands. Summer.
Scotch Creek Road, July 1, 2004.

Contrast this leaf form with that of another very common Four Corners Potentilla species, Potentilla pulcherrima.