Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Biennial cinquefoil

Potentilla biennis

Also called Greene's Cinquefoil

Biennial cinquefoil
Photo: Thayne Tuason, CC BY-SA 4.0

Biennial cinquefoil is a short-lived wild herb of western North America that grows in moist places and rarely appears in gardens. It is grown mainly for its small yellow flowers and suits a naturalistic or wildflower setting.

Family
Rosaceae (Rose family)
Grows as
Annual
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist during growth, since it naturally grows in moist habitat.
Soil
Average, well-drained garden soil that holds some moisture.
Temperature
10-25 °C; tolerates cool temperatures and hard frost in its native range.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not toxic to cats or dogs (ASPCA).
Native range
Mexico (Baja California Norte)
Climate
subtropical

About

Potentilla biennis is a species of cinquefoil known by the common names biennial cinquefoil and Greene's cinquefoil. It is native to western North America from northwestern Canada to the southwestern United States, where it grows in moist habitat. This is an annual or biennial herb producing an erect stem up to 70 centimeters tall from a taproot. It is hairy and glandular in texture. The hairy leaves are each divided into three toothed, oval leaflets each up to 3 centimeters long. The inflorescence is a cyme of several flowers. Each flower has five oval yellow petals 1 or 2 millimeters long and five triangular sepals which are slightly longer. The fruit is a minute whitish achene.

Other Potentilla plants

Potentilla californica · Potentilla clevelandii · Potentilla daucifolia · Potentilla rydbergii · Potentilla micheneri · Potentilla yadonii · Potentilla muirii · Potentilla paniculata · Potentilla pickeringii · Potentilla rhypara · Potentilla santolinoides · Potentilla webberi

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Potentilla biennis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…