About

Potentilla hickmanii (called Hickman's potentilla or Hickman's cinquefoil) is an endangered perennial herb of the rose family. This rare plant species is found in a narrowly restricted range in two locations in coastal northern California, in Monterey County, and in very small colonies in San Mateo County. This small wildflower, endemic to western slopes of the outer coastal range along the Pacific Ocean coast, produces bright yellow blossoms through spring and summer.

This species was formerly thought to be growing in Sonoma County, but that population has been recently reclassified as another species, Potentilla uliginosa, and is presumed extinct in that county.

Where it grows

P. hickmanii is currently known to occur in two coastal locations. The Federal Register documents colonies on the Monterey Peninsula and at another area in coastal San Mateo County. The Monterey population is within the municipal boundaries of the city of Monterey, growing in a native grassland opening of the Monterey pine forest at an old summer camp site. Plantings have been made, as attempts to establish new colonies in Monterey County at two areas the Point Lobos State Reserve, but those plantings failed by the summer of 2011 from the invasion of European weed grasses, and by the plantings situated too far from where the plants could easily be monitored or managed, and by planting in one site that was too wet for the species to survive.

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