A hardy deciduous shrub 0.1–1 m tall, rarely 1.5 m, upright to sprawling, the bark of old stems shredding in long strips. Densely leafy, the leaves pinnate with five or seven (occasionally three or nine) linear-oblong entire leaflets 3–20 mm long; leaves and young stems covered in silvery silky hairs about 1 mm long. Terminal buttercup-shaped flowers 2–3 cm across with five petals and 15–25 stamens, pale to bright yellow (orange to reddish in some western Chinese populations). Still widely listed as Potentilla fruticosa. One of the flowers called gesang in Tibetan and the city flower of Lhasa.
Habitat
Alpine meadows, scrub, river flats and rocky slopes in the subarctic and high mountains of the northern temperate zone; in sheets on the slopes of the Tibetan plateau.
Distribution
Across the cool temperate and alpine northern hemisphere in Asia, Europe and the Americas; common in the mountains of western, south-western and northern China and especially the Tibetan plateau; on the high mountains of Hokkaido and Honshu. Absent from Singapore.
Season and behaviour
June to September, peaking on the plateau in July and August, when it shares the frame with snow peaks on any summer journey across Tibet.
Photography tips
These are the FilmAnalysis editors' notes, not content from the sources.
The small yellow flowers clip in strong plateau sun, so a stop under or early and late; the silver-grey leaves look like velvet in side light. A wide lens from low down with the shrub in front and snow mountains behind is the classic plateau composition; macro a single flower for its twenty-odd stamens.
Photographic styles
Yellow shrubs before snow mountains; clarity in hard plateau light.
Similar species
Dasiphora glabra (white flowers, same genus); jin lao mei is another name for this species; herbaceous cinquefoils (not shrubby).
Related badge
None yet. No validated photo recognition exists for this species, so no badge is tied to it: a name in the encyclopedia is not evidence in a photograph.
The illustration is original FilmAnalysis artwork. The photograph is from Wikimedia Commons; its licence and author are under it.
Why it is listed: this species comes from the Flower checklist (GBIF backbone and Wikidata verified). Names follow the GBIF backbone and Wikidata; the facts follow the sources below; photo recognition is not offered.
