Potentilla pusillaHost

spring cinquefoil

WFO wfo-0001018785 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Ljaž
fig. a Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-28 / obs. 185055164
Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Ljaž
fig. b Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 122912412
Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Ljaž
fig. c Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119692912
Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. d Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 15918842
Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. e Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 3372371
Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Ljaž
fig. f Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 185055190
Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Ljaž
fig. g Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 122912419
Potentilla pusilla, photographed by Ljaž
fig. h Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119692938

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Potentilla pusilla is native: Albania, Austria, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Switzerland, Ukraine AlbaniaAustriaCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGermanyHungaryItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Potentilla pusilla, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
France FRA
Germany GER
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 88 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -8.2 °C -4.3 °C -1.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.3 °C 24.5 °C 27.8 °C
Annual rainfall 630 mm 1,153 mm 1,828 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 107 mm 191 mm 321 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 88 research-grade observations of Potentilla pusilla that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 124 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Potentilla abbreviata Zimmeter
  • Potentilla acaulis subsp. pusilla (Host) Guin.
  • Potentilla albertii Zimmeter
  • Potentilla bolzanensis var. astelligera F.Saut.
  • Potentilla bolzanensis var. latifolia F.Saut.
  • Potentilla bolzanensis var. prorepens F.Saut.
  • Potentilla bolzanensis var. umbrosa F.Saut.
  • Potentilla bondonis Evers
  • Potentilla bruginoensis Evers
  • Potentilla cinerea Gaudin
  • Potentilla cinerea subsp. gaudinii (Gremli) P.Fourn.
  • Potentilla cinerea var. gaudinii (Gremli) Rouy & E.G.Camus
  • Potentilla dubiosa Evers
  • Potentilla gaudinii Gremli
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. astelligera (F.Saut.) Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. benacensis Zimmeter ex Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. eglandulosa Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. eglandulosa Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. genuina Posp.
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. glandulosa Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. glandulosissima (Th.Wolf) Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. grandiflora Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. haematosticta (Goiran) Th.Wolf
  • Potentilla gaudinii f. incisa Posp.

and 100 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol PONE20. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.