PlantFiles: Sulphur Cinquefoil, Upright Cinquefoil, Rough-Fruited Cinquefoil, Sulpher Five-Fingers
Potentilla recta

I was delighted last year to find these plants along our fence. This year, I was even more delighted when one came up in my kitchen garden and formed a sturdy little bushy plant a little over a foot tall. They are very beautiful flowers that bloom from May to August for me. It is very drought tolerant, but mine is so vigorous because it is practically sitting on top of a sprinkler head. Withstands horrible rocky clay soil along our fence. A very long blooming and rugged plant! Happy to have it!

Had never noticed this plant before until it showed up in one of my flower beds. It's growing in an adjacent hayfield & apparently self-sowed from there. Now that I have identified it, I've been seeing it all over town, along roadsides & in fields. It's a very pretty flower but I'm withholding judgment on it until I see if it becomes invasive!

Native of Europe, naturalized in the US. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Insects.

Fruits are the edible part. Unripe fruit is supposed to be as tasty as the ripe fruit. Eat raw or cooked. Fruit has a wrinkled surface which is why the name.

The whole plant is astringent. A poultice of the pounded leaves and stems has been applied to open sores and wounds. A tea was made for sorethroat, tonsil and gum inflammations, throat and stomach ulcers, fever, and diarrhea.

Common in fields, pastures, disturbed ground and roadsides.

Grows well in full sun and poor soil including a 30 degree slope. Medium sized medium yellow blooms appear throughout summer on upright herbacious branches. Height has been about 12 inches with foliage dark green in color. Very tidy looking groundcover that is very drought tolerant. For heavier flowering shear off top 1 or 2 inches which includes developing seed pods after first flush of flowers have faded and water sporadicly.Winter hardy in Zone 3.

Lovely little golden flowers that need support to stand upright...I just let it crawl between other ones...very cheerfull! It loves the sun and I would rate it as suitable for xeriscaping. Even now.. still wintertime in early march...with recent frosts down to - 7C in my garden I 've seen one blooming...I guess it could 'nt wait for the sun that they love so much.

This plant grows wild in zone 4b. I've lived with it for many years, pulling the occasional plant as a "weed."

This very pretty little flower/plant lives in nearly pure sand, full unrelenting summer sun, and complete neglect. Having finally discovered what it is and realizing that it hasn't been invasive for the 30 years I've lived with it, I'm going to try transplanting it to a native flower border in my yard.

Have grown this plant for three years in a position where it gets direct sun for about half a day, and bright but indirect light the other half. It has a very long bloom period (started toward the end of June in my zone 4a garden and will continue to bloom all summer). The pale yellow flowers are attractive in an understated way, while the upright form makes it a good plant to put behind low growers. Mine is planted behind a clump of dark purple Viola tricolor and seems to work very well there. I find it much easier to fit into the garden than some of the more sprawly herbaceous potentillas.
No sign of self sowing or invasive character so far, but it's in very sandy soil of low fertility mixed with chunks of rock and gravel. It may be more inclined to spread in more fertile soil.