Three-toothed cinquefoil is a diminutive evergreen plant with a fondness for acid soils and alpine
and subalpine habitats: cliffs, ledges, grasses, meadows and fields.
All the photos here, at least when I wrote this article,
were found on mountains. It is a North American native.
Plants: Plants form low, evergeen mats, 1-8″ (2.5-20 cm) tall. Lower stems are woody and gray, while upper stems are light green to
red in color.
Leaves: Leaves are alternate and elliptic.
Each leaf is comprised of three leaflets arranged in a palmate (palm-like) cluster. Each
leaflet is up to 1½″ (3.8 cm) × ½″ (1.3 cm), with three teeth at the end. It is glossy dark green on top, and light green beneath.
Lower
leaves are attached via stems, while upper leaves may be directly attached. In sunny
areas, leaves turn deep red in the fall.
Flowers: White, ¼-½″ (8.4-12 mm) around, with 5 petals
and 5 pale green sepals between. Flowers often appear in dense clusters.
Petals are oval or egg-shaped, and often wrinkly. An exhuberant spray of stamens almost
as long as the petals
explodes from the center. Flowers appear from June to August.
Fruits: The sepals at the base of each flower
dry up, folding around the developing tiny seeds.