翻白草 fan bai cao

Potentilla discolor var. formosana (Hance) Franchet; P. formosana Hance.

Herbs perennial. Roots robust, lower parts often enlarged and fusiform. Flowering stems erect, ascending, or subspreading, 10–45 cm tall, together with petioles densely white lanate, sometimes also villous. Radical leaves 4–20 cm including petiole; stipules brown, membranous, white villous; leaf blade with 2–4 pairs of leaflets; leaflets opposite or alternate, at intervals of 0.8–1.5 cm, adaxially dark green, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 1–5 cm × 5–8 mm, abaxially densely white or grayish white lanate, inconspicuously veined, adaxially sparsely white lanate or glabrescent, base cuneate, broadly cuneate, or obliquely rounded, margin obtusely serrate, rarely acutely so, apex obtuse, rarely acute; cauline leaves 1 or 2; stipules green, ovate or broadly so, herbaceous, abaxially densely white lanate, margin incised dentate, rarely entire; leaf blade palmately 3–5-foliolate. Inflorescence cymose, laxly several to many flowered. Flowers 1–2 cm in diam.; pedicel 1–2.5 cm, lanate. Sepals triangular-ovate; epicalyx segments lanceolate, shorter than sepals, abaxially white lanate. Petals yellow, obovate, longer than sepals, apex rounded or emarginate. Style subterminal, base thickened, papillate; stigma slightly dilated. Achenes subreniform, ca. 1 mm wide, smooth. Fl. and fr. May–Sep.

Sparse forests, meadows, valleys, ravines. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jiangxi, Liaoning, Nei Mongol, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea].

This species is used medicinally.