Hand-like leaves split to the base into five to seven leaflets, silky white beneath, on a mountain track up Ben Nevis
Alpine lady's-mantle, Alchemilla alpina.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Alpine lady's-mantle
Native · flowers Jun–Aug · mountain grassland, rocks and snow-beds
Alchemilla alpina — Rosaceae
Alpine lady's-mantle is a small mountain perennial whose hand-shaped leaves are divided almost to the base into five to seven narrow leaflets, dark green above and glistening silver-white with silky hairs below. It carries tiny yellow-green flowers from June to August and is very common on Ben Nevis. It belongs to a genus that is mostly apomictic (seed set without fertilisation) and named for alchemists.
How to spot them
- ▸Leaves divided right to the base into 5–7 separate narrow, blunt-toothed leaflets — like a hand with the fingers spread
- ▸Underside of each leaflet covered with shining silvery-white silky hairs, and the margins are silver-edged
- ▸Tiny yellow-green flowers in clusters, without petals, June to August
- ▸Low tufted plant of mountain grassland, ledges, rocky slopes and snow-bed hollows in Scotland, the Pennines, the Lake District and Snowdonia
- ▸Look-alike: common lady's-mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris agg.), a lowland plant with rounded, shallowly lobed, pleated leaves — the alpine species' leaves are divided into separate leaflets and silvery underneath
How to know it
Silky white hairs on the underside of the leaves help to reduce water loss from this mountain plant
Alpine lady's-mantle — Plantlife.
Its genus name comes from the Arabic for alchemy, because the dew and water droplets on the leaves were prized by alchemists
Alchemilla — lady's-mantle.
The rounded, pleated lowland cousin of this plant is named for the Virgin Mary's cloak, in the leaf shape
Common lady's-mantle; the mountain species is alpine lady's-mantle.
Members of this genus mostly set seed without fertilisation, producing dozens of British microspecies that are hard to tell apart
Alchemilla — apomixis; alpine lady's-mantle is one of the few easy species.
Tiny yellow-green, petalless flowers open from June to August among silvery leaves on Scottish and northern hills
Alpine lady's-mantle.
Quick-fire facts
- •Native perennial of Rosaceae, the rose family, found on mountains in Scotland, northern England and Wales
- •Very common on Ben Nevis, where its five-lobed leaves stand out on the zigzag path (Plantlife)
- •Leaves have silky white hairs underneath, which reduce evaporation; flowers yellow-green, June to August (Plantlife)
- •Alchemilla comes from the Arabic alkemelych, alchemy, because alchemists collected the dew that beads on the leaves
- •'Lady' refers to the Virgin Mary, whose cloak the lobed common lady's-mantle leaf was thought to resemble
- •The genus is largely apomictic, producing seed without fertilisation, so British lady's-mantles include dozens of near-identical microspecies
- •Alpine lady's-mantle is easily separated from its relatives because the leaf is divided into separate leaflets and is silvery below
- •It is a good marker of upland grassland and snow-bed vegetation
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Sources
- Plantlife — Wildflower walk: Ben Nevis