This unassuming little member of the rose family likes to grow at the edge of the woods; this plant was growing on a shaded bank in Mount Lebanon, where it was blooming in the middle of June. The white flowers bear more than a passing resemblance to the flowers of blackberries or strawberries.

Gray describes the genus and the species, which he puts in the Eugeum or Geum-proper division of the genus:

Calyx bell-shaped or flattish, deeply 5-cleft, usually with 5 small bractlets at the sinuses. Petals 5. Stamens many. Achenes numerous, heaped on a conical or cylindrical dry receptacle, the long persistent styles forming hairy or naked and straight or jointed tails. Seed erect; radicle inferior. Perennial herbs, with pinnate or lyrate leaves. (A plant name used by Pliny.)

EUGEUM T. & G.  Styles jointed and bent near the middle, the upper part deciduous and mostly hairy, the lower naked and hooked, becoming elongated; head of fruit sessile in the calyx, calyx-lobes reflexed.

* Petals white or pale greenish-yellow, small, spatulate or oblong; stipules small.

+ Receptacle of the fruit densely hairy.

G. canadense Jacq. Stem (0.6-1.1 m. high) and petioles sparingly hairy; leaves soft-pubescent beneath or glabrate, the basal of 3-5 leaflets or undivided, those of the stern mostly 3-divided or -lobed, rather sharply toothed; stipules ovate-oblong, 1-1.5 cm. long, subentire; petals white. (G. album J. F. Gmel.) Borders of woods, etc., widely distributed.

Also called Rough Cinquefoil, because it has rough hairs all over. This paradoxical cinquefoil has three leaflets rather than five. It grows in waste places and isn’t too particular about soil; this plant grew in the middle of a gravel driveway near Cranberry, where it was blooming in mid-June.

Gray makes this species a variety of P. monspeliensis:

POTENTILLA L. CINQUEFOIL. FIVE-FINGER
Calyx flat, deeply 5-cleft, with as many bractlets at the sinuses, thus appearing 10-cleft. Petals 5, usually roundish. Stamens many. Achenes many, collected in a head on the dry mostly pubescent or hairy receptacle; styles lateral or terminal, deciduous. Radicle superior. Herbs, or rarely shrubs, with com- pound leaves, and solitary or cymose flowers; their parts rarely in fours. (Name diminutive from potens, powerful, originally applied to P. Anserina, from its reputed medicinal powers.)

P. monspeliensis L. Stout, erect, hirsute, 2-1) dm. high ; leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets obovate to oblanceolate, those of the uppermost leaves toothed nearly the whole length ; cyme rather close, leafy; calyx large; stamens 15-20. Open soil, Nfd. to Alaska, s. to D. C., Mo., Kan., and N. Mex. May-Aug. (E. Asia.)

Var. norvegica (L.) Rydb. Less hirsute; leaflets more narrowly oblong, those of the uppermost leaves mostly 3-5-toothed near the end; inflorescence looser. (P. norvegica L.) Similar situations, e. Que. to n. N. E., L. Superior, and northwestw.; occasional on ballast southw. (Eurasia.)

This little creeper, found in shady lawns everywhere, bears bland, tasteless fruit that looks like wild strawberries, but it’s easily distinguished by its yellow flowers. Children like to tell each other that the fruit is poisonous and then dare each other to eat it. It’s perfectly edible, but not really worth eating. It is nevertheless much valued by herbalists, who suppose it to have useful medicinal properties.

The word “Indian” in the common name of a North American plant often means “not really.” Indian Tobacco is a lobelia; Indian Bean or Indian Stogie is the Catalpa tree. So it comes as a surprise that this plant, which seems to fit perfectly into that pattern, is actually an Asian import, named not for the aboriginal Americans but for India.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

DUCHESNEA Sin. INDIAN STRAWBERRY
Calyx 5-parted, the lobes alternating with much larger foliaceous spreading 3-toothed appendages. Petals 5, yellow. Receptacle in fruit spongy but not juicy. Flowers otherwise as in Fragaria. Perennial herb with leafy runners and 3-foliolate leaves similar to those of the true strawberries. (Dedicated to Antoine Nicolas Duchesne, an early monographer of Fragaria.)

D. indica (Andr.) Focke. Fruit red, insipid. (Fragaria Andr.) Waste ground, grassy places, etc., s. N. Y. and e. Pa. to Fla., Ark., and Mo. (Introd. from Eurasia.)

Thorny canes of blackberry can make the edge of the woods nearly impenetrable, but they reward us with these pretty (though often a bit sloppy) white flowers, and then of course with sweet blackberries. This stand grew at the edge of an old German Lutheran cemetery in Beechview.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

RUBUS [Tourn.] L. BRAMBLE
Calyx 5 (3-7)-parted, without bractlets. Petals 5, deciduous. Stamens numerous. Achenes usually many, collected on a spongy or succulent receptacle, becoming small drupes; styles nearly terminal. Perennial herbs, or somewhat shrubby plants, with white (rarely reddish) flowers, and usually edible fruit. (The Roman name, kindred with ruber, red.)

In June these clusters of white flowers appear along streambanks; these grew along the Peters Trail.