Lady's-mantles
What are they?
The Lady's-mantles are a group of perennial herbaceous plants in the Rose Family (Rosaceae). They typically have palmately lobed (sometimes palmately compound) leaves and small, greenish-yellow flowers carried in many-branched heads. The flowers are somewhat unusual, having no petals and just four sepals, plus an additional row of four, sepal-like lobes, which are known as an epicalyx. Lady's-mantles are probably most closely related to the parsley-pierts and the strawberries.
Where are they found?
These plants naturally occur in species-rich grassland communities, with most species occurring in more hilly or mountaneous parts of the UK. In East Anglia, just two species have been recorded in the past, from ancient meadows but these may now have been lost, leaving us with a single, introduced species that may be found in urban and suburban habitats.
Identification
Sorting out the Lady's-mantles to species level can be difficult as this is a group of apomictic species which, like brambles, form clonal populations which may originally have arisen from past hybridisation events. However, in East Anglia, such matters need not concern us unnecessarily as we have only one species that is likely to be encountered and which is a relatively large and distinctive species.
Downy Lady's-mantle Alchemilla mollis
Introduced from the Black Sea region as a garden ornamental and often used as an amenity plant, from where it may spread into neighbouring areas. Flowers May to September. Herbaceous perennial to around 70cm in height. Leaves downy on both sides and especially on the leaf stalk (petiole), palmately lobed with 9-11 lobes. Flowers about 5mm across, the epicalyx lobes each abut 2mm long.
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