(Blume) W.Theob.
Description
Potentilla sundaica (Blume) W.Theob. is a widespread perennial cinquefoil ranging across tropical and subtropical Asia from the Himalaya (Nepal, Bhutan, northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan) through China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan into South-East Asia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Russian Far East, the GBIF dataset recording some 5,300 occurrences over this broad area. It is a plant of open grassy slopes, forest clearings, roadsides, streambanks and disturbed montane ground, ascending from lowland to high-montane elevations. The illustrated collection comes from Phajoding above Thimphu in Bhutan at 3700 m in June, near the upper part of its altitudinal range, where it grows in moist alpine to subalpine turf.
It is a slender perennial or sometimes short-lived herb with ascending to decumbent, often reddish, hairy stems arising from a slender rootstock. The leaves are mostly ternate, occasionally with an additional pair of leaflets, the leaflets obovate to oblong-cuneate, coarsely serrate to dentate in the upper part and clothed with appressed to spreading hairs; the leaves are stipulate at the base. The flowers are borne in lax, few- to several-flowered cymes, each with an epicalyx of bracteoles alternating with the five calyx lobes and five obovate yellow petals roughly equalling or shorter than the sepals. Numerous stamens surround a domed receptacle bearing many carpels. The fruit is an aggregate of small, smooth to faintly wrinkled achenes seated on a slightly hairy receptacle.
Long known under the name Potentilla kleiniana, this species is a member of the taxonomically difficult P. sundaica complex, whose variable leaf division and indumentum have generated numerous synonyms and infraspecific names across its vast range. As a hardy colonist of open and disturbed habitats it is ecologically a pioneer of grasslands and trodden ground, and it is a frequent component of grazed montane pasture. Given its abundance and ecological amplitude it is of no conservation concern, ranking among the more ubiquitous Asian cinquefoils.
Author: (Blume) W.Theob. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China, Flora of Bhutan, Potentilla of the Sino-Himalaya (Soják)