Old-field cinquefoil

Potentilla simplex, the common or oldfield cinquefoil, is a low, slender perennial herb of the Rosaceae native to eastern and central North America, arising from a stout, often woody rhizome that produces a basal tuft of leaves and long, arching, prostrate, strawberry-like stolons that may reach 30-100 cm and root at the nodes. Both the basal leaves and those of the flowering stems are palmately compound with five obovate to oblanceolate leaflets 2-6 cm long, sharply serrate along the upper two-thirds of the margin, green and sparsely hairy above and paler with appressed silky hairs beneath; the lateral leaflets are slightly smaller than the central one. Flowers are solitary on slender, axillary pedicels, 8-15 mm across, with five bright yellow obovate petals slightly longer than the five lanceolate sepals and five alternating linear epicalyx bractlets. Stamens are about 20 and the receptacle bears numerous distinct carpels. The fruit is a head of small, dry, smooth achenes 1-1.5 mm long. The species flowers in spring and grows in dry to moderately moist open woods, fields, roadsides and lawn edges.