''Potentilla simplex'', also known as common cinquefoil or old-field five-fingers or oldfield cinquefoil, is a perennial herb in the
Rosaceae (rose) family native to eastern North America from Ontario, Quebec, and Labrador south to Texas, Alabama, and panhandle Florida.
''Potentilla simplex'' is a familiar plant with prostrate stems that root at nodes, with yellow flowers and 5-parted palmately pinnate leaves arising from stolons (runners) on separate stalks.
Complete flowers bearing 5 yellow
petals (about 4-10 mm long) bloom from March to June. It bears seed from April to July. It is commonly found in woodlands, fields, and disturbed areas.
Along with ''
Potentilla canadensis
Potentilla canadensis, the dwarf cinquefoil, is a species of cinquefoil (genus ''Potentilla'') native to North America.
The Iroquois take a pounded infusion of the roots as an antidiarrheal. The Natchez Natchez may refer to:
Places
* Natchez, ...
'', the plant is an indicator of impoverished soil as well as the host species for the cinquefoil bud gall wasp ''
Diastrophus potentillae''.
Pollinators include mason bees, small carpenter bees, cuckoo bees, halictid bees, syrphid flies, tachinid flies, blow flies, and others. Less common pollinators are wasps and butterflies. Rabbits and groundhogs eat the foliage.
Young shoots and leaves are edible as a salad or pot herb.
References
simplex
Edible plants
Flora of North America
Plants described in 1803
Taxa named by André Michaux
{{Rosaceae-stub