WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

With hairy, erect stems 1–2-feet tall, this unusual cinquefoil has showy red flowers. Note the numerous stamens and pistils typical of the rose family and the palmately divided leaves (like fingers on a hand).

FLOWERS: July–August. Flowers in loose clusters on stem tips, dark red, 5/8–1-inch wide (15–25 mm) with 5 broad, rounded, lobed, rose-like petals; sepals hairy, pointed, mostly shorter than petals.

LEAVES: Basal ; alternate smaller stem leaves. Palmately compound with 5–7 leaflets, leaf stems (petioles) hairy, to 4 3/4-inch long (12 cm), leaflets 3/8–2-inches long (1–5 cm), margins lined with teeth. Leaflets with green top surfaces and either silky bottoms (var. atrorubens) or nearly hairless bottoms (var. thurberi). 

HABITAT: Moist sandy, gravelly soils, streambanks, meadows; juniper-oak, ponderosa-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 6,000–9,500 feet.

RANGE: AZ, NM.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Of the 24 species of Potentilla in NM, this is the only red one.

NM COUNTIES: Mid elevations in southern mountains, scattered elsewhere: Bernalillo, Catron, Grant, Hidalgo, Otero, Lincoln, Los Alamos, McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Torrance.