Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

TALL WOOD-BEAUTY

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Drymocallis arguta (Pursh ) Rydb.

[=Potentilla arguta Pursh]

Morris County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 12-40 inches

Family: Rosaceae - Rose Family

Flowering Period: June, July

Stems:

Erect, simple or branched distally, sparsely to densely glandular-villous, without prickles.

Leaves:

Basal and cauline; alternate, odd-pinnately compound, frequently with smaller leaflets intermixed with larger ones; stipules leaf-like; petiole present on basal and lower cauline leaves, absent on upper cauline leaves. Basal leaves 2.5 to 16 inches, surfaces densely villous abaxially, sparsely villous adaxially; blade odd-pinnately compound; leaflets 7-11, ovate to obovate, oblong, or elliptic, 1 to 3.2 inches, margins sharply serrate to shallowly incised. Cauline leaves: leaflets 5(-9), sharply serrate.

Inflorescences:

Terminal, 10-40-flowered cymes.

Flowers:

Sepals, petals and stamens arising from rim of hypanthium; epicalyx bractlets 5; hypanthium shallowly cup-shaped; sepals 5, spreading, elliptic, .24 to .35 inch; petals 5, spreading, cream-colored to yellowish white, obovate, .28 to .4 inch; stamens 20-30(-40); receptacle hemispheric to conic; pistils 10-80, distinct, free; ovaries superior; style deciduous, filiform; ovule 1.

Fruits:

Aggregated achenes; achenes light brown, obovoid, .04 to .06 inch, faintly ribbed or minutely wrinkled glabrous.

Habitat:

Tallgrass prairies, openings in oak-hickory woodlands, and roadsides.

Distribution:

East third of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Drymocallis, woods and beauty, and arguta, acute, alluding to the teeth of the leaflets.

Tall wood-beauty inflorescence