White cinquefoil

Potentilla alba, commonly known as white cinquefoil, is a low-growing perennial herb in the family Rosaceae native to central, eastern and southeastern Europe, where it grows in dry meadows, open oak and pine woodland, forest margins and grassy slopes on calcareous soils. It forms a low rosette of basal leaves that are palmately compound with five oblong-lanceolate leaflets, dark green above and densely silvery-silky beneath, giving the underside its characteristic whitish appearance. Slender weakly ascending flowering stems 8 to 25 centimeters long bear loose clusters of comparatively large flowers; each flower has five white petals (occasionally faintly pinkish) and a central tuft of yellow stamens, blooming in late spring and early summer. The fruit is a cluster of small dry achenes. The plant grows from a stout woody dark-brown rhizome that has been the medicinally used part in central and eastern European folk tradition.