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 pensylvanica and P. plattensis, Potentilla rubricaulis, and Drymocallis arguta.

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 as shown in the last photograph below) rather than palmate. 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.

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Potentilla hippiana