Potentilla reptans

Potentilla reptans, known as the creeping cinquefoil, European cinquefoil or creeping tormentil, is a flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is a creeping perennial that reaches about 20 centimetres in height, with trailing stems that can take root at the nodes and so spread by vegetative reproduction. Its hairless, palmate leaves sit on long stalks and are divided into five to seven leaflets, with small green leaf-like stipules at the base. In Europe it flowers from June to September, bearing solitary yellow flowers about 7 to 11 millimetres across on long stalks, each with five heart-shaped petals, five sepals, five epicalyx segments that make it look as if it had ten sepals, and many stamens and carpels at the centre. It is native across Europe, Asia and Africa and has been introduced to North America, Australia and New Zealand. It grows in neutral soils in grasslands, hedgerows, roadsides and arable land, and also turns up in lawns and flowerbeds as a weed. Its leaves feed the caterpillars of the grizzled skipper butterfly, and alcoholic extracts from its roots have shown moderate antimicrobial activity against common wound pathogens.