Potentilla thurberi A.Gray Rosaceae Hardy perennial. Cultivar 'Monarch's Velvet'. English name for Potentilla is Cinquefoil. Distribution: Mexico. New Mexico and Arizona. but potentillas are found in all the northern hemisphere continents. Named for Dr George Thurber (1821-1890), horticulturist, botanist and quartermaster of the Mexican Boundary Survey of 1850-1854 and Professor of Botany and Horticulture at Michigan Agricultural College 1859-1863. Potentillas are in use in Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine. Lyte (1578 calls them Cinquefoyle, Sinckefoyle, Five finger grasse, Pentaphyllon, separating them from Tormentil or Setfoyle, which are now all in Potentilla. He recommends them in different preparations for toothache, mouth ulcers, dysentery ['bloudy fluxe'] excessive bleeding, gout, sciatica, 'evilfavoured nayles', diseases of the lungs, liver and all poisons, tertian and quartan fevers, epilepsy, prolapses and inguinal hernias ['the falling downe of the bowelles or other matter in the Coddes'], and mixed with salte and sugar to close wounds, fistulas and ulcers. In his use for Tormentil he has an interesting example of the Doctrine of the Humours in recommending it be made up with water of a Smythes forge, or water wherein Iron, or a hot burning steel hath bene often quenched' for curing a fever or bleeding of any sort (gastrointestinal, uterine, kidney etc.). Clearly, the concept was that water that cooled an excess of the hot, fiery element (of Empedocles) would quench the excess of the excess of the hot fiery humour (of Hippocrates) represented by the blood, in such illnesses (see also pimpinell, Sanguisorba officinalis). Culpeper (1650) as always in his early editions, is succinct: 'Pentaphylli, Of Cinkfoyl: Commonly called five-leaved or five-fingered grass
... stops blood flowing from any part of the body, it helps infirmities of the Liver and Lungues, helps putrified ulcers of the mouth, the root boyled in Vinegar is good against the Shingles, and appeaseth the rage of any fretting sores.' His contemporary, William Coles (1657) is making use of the Doctrine of Signatures, first invoked by Theophrastus, in recommending with respect to the distilled water of the roots and leaves (the latter resembling a hand) 'Cinkefoile ... if the hands be often washed therein, and suffered every time to dry of it self, without wiping, it wil in a short time help the Palsie, or shaking of them.' Quincy (1718) writes of Pentalphylli, Cinquefoil. 'Schroder runs thro most Chronical Distempers in its Commendation,
as it is not unusual for many German Writers to do' [German herbal medicine legislation to this day is much more embracing than in the rest of Europe] and gives a long list of conditions, similar to Lyte's, that it is reputed to treat, but ends ' Notwithstanding all these Excellencies, this Simple is now only remembered for a place it has in the Theriaca Andromachi, and is not of any other use in the Shops or Practice.' Linnaeus (1782) follows Lyte (who is of course translating Dodoens, 1552) in recommending Potentilla for jaundice, dysentery and prolapse, but adds leucorrhea and calculus. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
