D. Don
Description
Potentilla peduncularis is a Sino-Himalayan cinquefoil recorded in GBIF from China, Nepal, India, Bhutan, Pakistan and Myanmar across 239 occurrences. It occupies alpine and subalpine meadows, grassy slopes, open scrub and stream margins, typically between 3000 and 4300 m. The photographed plants were recorded at Yumthang in Sikkim at about 3700 m and at Tsochenchen in Bhutan at 3600 m, both in June, when long days and snow-melt moisture drive the early summer flush of flowering on these high pastures.
It is a tufted perennial herb arising from a stout, woody, branched rootstock, producing ascending to spreading flowering stems 15-40 cm tall that are clothed in spreading hairs. The leaves are pinnate (imparipinnate) with several pairs of oblong, deeply serrate to incised leaflets that are green and pilose above and densely white- to grey-tomentose beneath, giving a bicoloured aspect. The inflorescence is a lax, long-pedunculate cyme of yellow flowers, each with five sepals alternating with epicalyx segments, five obcordate petals, and numerous stamens surrounding a domed receptacle of carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of small, glabrous achenes.
Although widely accepted, the name is treated in GBIF as a synonym, with Potentilla peduncularis itself given as the accepted name; the species sits within the large, taxonomically intricate genus Potentilla (Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae), where the dense white leaf indumentum is a useful diagnostic among Himalayan yellow-flowered cinquefoils. Pollination is by generalist insects, and the dry achenes are dispersed passively. It is locally frequent and not regarded as threatened.
Author: D. Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of Pakistan, Soják revision of Asian Potentilla