Intermediate lady's-mantle

Alchemilla xanthochlora, the intermediate lady's-mantle, is a herbaceous perennial in the family Rosaceae native to montane meadows and pastures of central and western Europe. Plants form a basal rosette of long-petiolate leaves arising from a stout woody rootstock, with flowering stems 20-50 cm tall. The leaves are reniform to orbicular, 5-12 cm across, palmately divided into 7-11 shallow rounded lobes with serrated margins; the upper surface is largely glabrous and bright yellow-green (xanthochlora means yellow-green), while the lower surface and petioles are conspicuously soft-hairy with spreading hairs. Like all lady's-mantles, the leaves are characteristically water-repellent and exude beads of guttation water at the leaf margins on humid mornings. The inflorescence is a loose, branched corymbose cyme of numerous small yellow-green flowers, each 3-4 mm across and lacking petals, with four sepaloid lobes alternating with four narrow epicalyx segments. Alchemilla xanthochlora reproduces apomictically (without fertilization) and inhabits damp meadows, woodland clearings, streamsides, and montane grasslands.