Potentilla rectaL.

sulphur cinquefoil

WFO wfo-0000983388 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Potentilla recta, photographed by Erik Schiff
fig. a Erik Schiff, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205830861
Potentilla recta, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. b Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205673100
Potentilla recta, photographed by Étienne Léveillé-Bourret
fig. c Étienne Léveillé-Bourret, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205233394
Potentilla recta, photographed by Chris Merck
fig. d Chris Merck, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205552587
Potentilla recta, photographed by Matt Pelikan
fig. e Matt Pelikan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204959443
Potentilla recta, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. f Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205222001
Potentilla recta, photographed by pachips
fig. g pachips, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205032914
Potentilla recta, photographed by Kalvin Chan
fig. h Kalvin Chan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205339612

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 3,790 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 3,790 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 174 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.

  • Fragaria recta (L.) Crantz
  • Hypargyrium rectum (L.) Fourr.
  • Pentaphyllum rectum (L.) Nieuwl.
  • Potentilla acutifolia Gilib.
  • Potentilla asturica var. pseudovelutina Losa
  • Potentilla balcanica (Th.Wolf) Micevski
  • Potentilla balcanica var. oligodonta Micevski
  • Potentilla besseri Błocki
  • Potentilla cardiopetala Besser ex Ser.
  • Potentilla cardiopetala Besser ex DC.
  • Potentilla corymbosa Moench
  • Potentilla crassa Tausch
  • Potentilla crassa Tausch ex Opiz
  • Potentilla crassa f. castrilensis Degen & Hervier
  • Potentilla crassa f. castrilensis Degen & Hervier
  • Potentilla erecta Maiden
  • Potentilla fallacina Błocki ex Woł.
  • Potentilla fallacina Błocki
  • Potentilla fallacina f. eglandulosa R.Keller & Siegfr.
  • Potentilla herbichii Błocki
  • Potentilla hirta f. gracilis (Prodan) Guşul.
  • Potentilla hirta f. tenuirugis (Pomel) Batt.
  • Potentilla hirta prol. recta (L.) Rouy & E.G.Camus
  • Potentilla hirta subsp. recta (L.) Briq.

and 150 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.

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