Creeping sibbaldia

Sibbaldia procumbens, the creeping sibbaldia, is a low mat-forming perennial herb in the family Rosaceae with a circumpolar arctic-alpine distribution across northern Eurasia, Greenland, and the mountains of North America. Plants form dense patches with prostrate or weakly ascending stems 2-15 cm tall arising from a tough woody rootstock and rhizomes that creep through gravelly substrates. Leaves are basal and stem-borne, palmately trifoliate, each leaflet obovate to wedge-shaped, 8-20 mm long, with three (rarely five) coarse teeth at the truncate apex and a deeply incised tip; the leaflets are bluish- or grey-green and finely appressed-hairy on both surfaces. Stipules are conspicuous and broadly ovate. The inflorescence is a small loose terminal cyme of 3-12 inconspicuous flowers, each 4-7 mm across, with five small pale-yellow obovate petals (often shorter than the calyx lobes and sometimes nearly absent) and five lanceolate green sepals alternating with smaller bracteoles. Flowers have only five fertile stamens and 5-10 carpels — features that have led to occasional segregation of Sibbaldia from Potentilla. Flowering occurs from June to August. The species inhabits stony alpine meadows, snow beds, fellfields, and exposed rocky tundra.