tags: Potentilla fruticosa, Gardening, Horticulture, Botany, nature, Helsinki, image of the day
Is this a wild rose or a close relative?
"Goldfinger" or the Buttercup Shrub, Potentilla fruticosa.
Photographed alongside a roadway in Pitäjänmäki in northern Helsinki, Finland.
Image: GrrlScientist, 4 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image)
"Goldfinger" -- which has a wide variety of common names, such as the Goldfinger shrubby Potentilla, Shrubby Cinquefoil and my favorite, the Buttercup Shrub -- is a hardy and dense shrub with dark green leaves and bright yellow flowers that are roughly 1 1/2 inch wide. The name comes from the Latin, cinquefolium ("five leaves") for the flowers' five petals. Flowers are flat and round, and come in a variety of colors, yellow being most common. Native to the Rocky, Cascade and Olympic mountains of the United States, these plants are popular ornamentals that flower continuously from June through October with little preference to soil or water conditions.
Life Science
Education
Comments
Looks like a Common Rock-Rose, a Helianthemum. Perhaps a variety of the H. nummularium found in the UK.
Posted by: John | July 8, 2009 5:01 PM
My guess is Potentilla fruticosa. Definitely in Rosaceae in any case.
Posted by: Diane | July 8, 2009 5:29 PM
Diane appears to be correct. I have a photograph of a flower of Potentilla (Dasiphora) fruticosa 'Goldfinger' which is pretty much identical.
Helianthemum has a single style with a capitate stigma. (And the shape of the anthers is different as well.)
Posted by: alias Ernest Major | July 8, 2009 5:40 PM