Hybrid Cinquefoil - Potentilla anglica x reptans = P. x mixta

Description

Usually has flowers with four yellow petals, though sometimes five. The achenes are all sterile, the leaf petioles are often over 5 cm long and mostly the same length for the full length of the shoot, sometimes rooting at the nodes.

Hybrids between Potentilla anglica and Potentilla reptans and between Potentilla erecta and Potentilla reptans occur (the latter is P. x italica).  Stace (4th edition) states that these two hybrids can only been told apart by chromosome count. 

Similar Species

Potentilla reptans, Potentilla erecta and Potentilla anglica

Identification difficulty
ID guidance

Some flowers with 4 petals like Tormentil, but leaves with 4-5 leaflets and longer petioles, which are are same length along the stem from lower down to apex.  Very similar to Trailing Cinquefoil, but sterile, so the old flowerheads have few or no achenes containing seeds

Recording advice

The County Recorder has asked for a specimen of this plant to be retained for verification

Habitat

Grassland and verges on acid soils.

When to see it

Flowers June to September.

Life History

Perennial.

UK Status

Widespread but occasional in Britain.

VC55 Status

Rare or under recorded in Leicestershire and Rutland where there are only four records to 2017. It was not recorded in the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire.

In the current checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as 'rarely recorded, but some records of P anglica were probably one of these hybrids . . '

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2020+ | 2015-2019 | pre-2015

UK Map

Species profile

Common names
Hybrid Cinquefoil
Species group:
Wildflowers
Kingdom:
Plantae
Order:
Rosales
Family:
Rosaceae
Records on NatureSpot:
1
First record:
22/06/2017 (Calow, Graham)
Last record:
22/06/2017 (Calow, Graham)

Total records by month

% of records within its species group

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