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Silverweed

Silverweed

Argentina anserina

Identify the Silverweed from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

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How common: Very common

Silverweed is a low, creeping perennial with bright yellow, five‑petaled flowers and leaves that look silvery underneath. It spreads by long runners that root wherever they touch the ground. You can often see it on paths, lawns, fields, parks, and along seashores.

Did you know?

  • The silvery underside of the leaves gives Silverweed its name.
  • It tolerates trampling and can quickly carpet open ground with its rooting runners.

About the species

Identification

Low, creeping plant forming mats with long runners (30–80 cm) that root at the joints. Leaves are made of many small oval, saw‑toothed leaflets arranged along a central stalk; the underside is covered in white hairs, giving a silvery look. Flower stalks rise from the leaf joints, each with a single bright yellow flower about 1 cm across; green outer parts behind the petals are shorter. After flowering it makes tiny hard brown seeds. The silvery leaf undersides and sprawling runners separate it from other yellow cinquefoils, which are more upright and lack the silver sheen. Flowers in Finland from June to August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

shore

Flowering

Jun–Aug

About the habitat

Open, often disturbed places such as meadows, yards, fields, parks, roadsides and seashores, commonly on sandy or gravelly soil. Common in southern Finland and along the Bothnian Bay coast; scarcer in central and eastern Finland; absent from Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Walter Siegmund (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Argentina egedii 2834.JPG

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki leviäimet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38844

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki versot, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38844

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38844

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Abies-Allium, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38844

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketohanhikki

See also