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Potentilla indica
Also called Mock Strawberry, Indian Strawberry, False Strawberry, Yellow Strawberry, Wild Strawberry, Yellow Flower Strawberry, Snake Berries
In Singapore: Mock Strawberry, 蛇莓 (Naturalised in Singapore)
Potentilla indica, also called mock or Indian strawberry, is a low creeping perennial in the rose family that spreads by runners and has yellow flowers and small red fruit resembling strawberries. It grows as a weed in lawns and is easy to establish in moist, shaded or partly shaded ground.
Potentilla indica, known commonly as false strawberry, mock strawberry, or Indian strawberry, (also snakeberry in North America) is a flowering plant in the family Rosaceae, native to West Asia to India, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. It has ternate foliage and an aggregate accessory fruit, similar to true strawberries of the genus Fragaria. Unlike the white or slightly pink flowers of true strawberries, Potentilla indica has yellow flowers, as do many other Potentilla species. It is native to eastern and southern Asia, but has naturalized in many regions worldwide. P. indica is an introduced species in the United States and Canada, often noticed as a weed on grass lawns.
Many sources consider this plant part of the genus Potentilla due to evidence from chloroplast genetic sequence data that the genus Duchesnea is included within Potentilla, though some still list it as Duchesnea indica.
The fresh berries are edible but considered less palatable than proper strawberries.
Dwarf Yellow Cinquefoil · Varileaf cinquefoil · Tormentil · Spring cinquefoil · Snow cinquefoil · Norwegian cinquefoil · Creeping cinquefoil · Brook cinquefoil · Common cinquefoil · Cinquefoil
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Potentilla indica 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.
