Americanized Sulphur Cinquefoil Gardens Away From Rose Family Members

Summary: Americanized sulphur cinquefoil gardens separate toxic weeds from edible, ornamental apple, cherry, peach, plum, raspberry, rose and strawberry relatives.

sulphur cinquefoil's characteristic pale yellow flowers, well-developed stem leaves and hirsute, or hairy, stems; Bozeman, Gallatin County, southwestern Montana; July 13, 2009; Matt Lavin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Americanized sulphur cinquefoil gardens accept pathogen-hosting, pest-attacking, toxin-producing weeds in the Rosaceae family and alleviate cultivation pressures on farmers, gardeners, naturalists and orchardists of roses and non-weedy rose-related herbs, shrubs and trees.

Provincial and state legislation bars sulphur cinquefoil from Alberta and British Columbia in Canada and from Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington in the United States. Only tormentil of the common names five-finger cinquefoil, rough-fruited cinquefoil, upright cinquefoil and yellow cinquefoil communicates objection to sulphur cinquefoil, scientifically named Potentilla recta (powerful, erect). Bristles and tannins discourage foraging wildlife and grazing livestock while seeds and shoots deter native grasses and dominate clearings, farmlands, gardens, pastures, rangelands, roadsides and wastelands.

The European herbaceous perennial endures weed sanctions, along with related, non-native Himalayan blackberry and multiflora rose, that elude related, native rough cinquefoil and non-native single-seed hawthorn.

Gland-tipped hairs fill the margins and stems of oval, three-nerved, 0.11- to 0.16-inch- (2.8- to 4-millimeter-) long, 0.04- to 0.06-inch- (1- to 1.5-millimeter-) wide embryonic leaves.

The seedling stage's cotyledons give way to first- and second-stage leaves with soft-haired surfaces and toothed margins and to third-stage compound leaves with three bristle-haired leaflets. Alternate, mature, palmately (handlike) compound foliage has five to nine oblong to lance-shaped, 1.18- to 5.51-inch- (3- to 14-centimeter-) long leaflets with seven- to 17-toothed margins. It is pale on its undersides, long-stalked on lower leaves, membranous on basal structures called stipules and stalkless on the three leaflets on all upper leaves.

Americanized sulphur cinquefoil gardens join hairy foliage onto as many as 21 hairy, 7.87- to 31.49-inch- (20- to 80-centimeter-) tall stems juggled by one shoots-producing crown.

Sulphur cinquefoil, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), knows 20-year life cycles with 29.53- to 49.21-inch (750- to 1,250-millimeter) yearly rainfall.

Shoots and stems respectively lead independent 20-year life cycles after their central crown's death by layering (leaning soil-ward and rooting) and by suckering onto fresh plants. Layering and suckering mingle with seeding, third of multiple weedy reproduction means that manage a maximum yearly production of 6,000 seeds from every mature sulphur cinquefoil.

All 15 to 35 perfect, regular flowers, 0.79 to 0.98 inches (2 to 2.5 centimeters) across, on stem-tipped inflorescences called corymbs need bractlets and hypanthia (cups).

Every five leaflike bractlets offer Americanized sulphur cinquefoil gardens a fused hypanthium of five hairy sepals, five heart-shaped, 0.39-inch- (1-centimeter-) long petals, pistils and 30 stamens.

April to September blooms produce, per flower, about 62 dry, nonexplosive fruits called achenes, each of whose single seeds prove viable for 28 months in soil.

Sunlit soil temperatures between 68 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit (20 and 35 degrees Celsius) quicken germination of beak-hooked, black-brown, 0.09-inch- (2.5-millimeter-) long seeds with winged margins. Cutting, grafting, layering, seeding and suckering remain welcome reproduction means for such edible, ornamental sulphur cinquefoil relatives as apples, cherries, peaches, plums, raspberries, roses and strawberries. They serve sulphur cinquefoil-like sanctions against Chinese, Japanese and Korean multiflora rose and North African and west European blackberry but not Eurasian and North African hawthorn.

Like tames like and never threatens like when Americanized sulphur cinquefoil gardens throw toxic, weedy rose family members together, well away from their edible, ornamental relatives.

Potentilla recta flowers typically have light to pale yellow coloring, but white to gold coloring sometimes occurs; white-flowering sulphur cinquefoil individuals; Nahant Marsh, Davenport, Scott County, Iowa: Jennifer Anderson, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS PLANTS Database

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

sulphur cinquefoil's characteristic pale yellow flowers, well-developed stem leaves and hirsute, or hairy, stems; Bozeman, Gallatin County, southwestern Montana; July 13, 2009; Matt Lavin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Potentilla_recta_(3726499757).jpg?uselang=fr

white-flowering sulphur cinquefoil individuals; Nahant Marsh, Davenport, Scott County, Iowa: Jennifer Anderson, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS PLANTS Database @ https://plants.usda.gov/java/largeImage?imageID=pore5_002_ahp.tif

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "10. Potentilla recta." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 497. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358516

"Potentilla recta L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/27800123

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.