Low to short plant with long rooting runners. Leaves in basal tufts, trifoliate, with bright green oval toothed leaflets. Flowers white, 12 to 18 mm in lax clusters, scarcely exceeding the leaves. Strawberry small with deflexed sepals.

Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis) has grey-green leaves with the terminal tooth shorter than those either side

Terminal tooth of leaflet similar size to those either side

Photo of flowers and leaves (+ fruit if present)

Dry habitats, old railways, roadsides.

April to July.

Perennial.

Fairly frequent throughout Britain.

Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In The Flora of Leicestershire (Primavesi & Evans 1988) it was found in 118 of the 617 tetrads.

It has a national threat level, and therefore would qualify under this criterion for inclusion in the Rare Plant Register - however, it is often planted and escaping from cultivation.  For this reason, it is not on the current RPR (Hall & Woodward, 2022), but is listed as 'data deficient' because it is not clear whether records are of introduced/escaped plants or natives.