Photographed at ca. 1500m altitude on Mt. Cokely, Vancouver island. 1 previous record for the Island is shown on e-flora.
What a beautiful plant! Until I checked on E-Flora BC a moment ago, I did not realize that there are about 30 Potentilla species in BC. Sorry not to be able to help you identify the one you found on Mt. Cokely but I hope someone else will. I want one.
Thanks, as I'm relatively new to BC botany, I mainly depend on Pojar and MacKinnon for the coastal area. I often have difficulty in reconciling their photos with what I see in the field, (I DO read their descriptions) so I try E-flora as a backup. P. nivea seemed a better fit from that, but as you're local, I'll certainly defer to your opinion !
Don't defer just because I'm local -- I've been wrong before! I recall that for the alpine species of Potentilla, there seem to be some incongruous entities in the province that don't nicely fit the keys (or perhaps the keys are poorly written). Looking at the keys in the Illustrated Flora of BC, the characteristics to distinguish the two from each other aren't readily apparent in your photo. I used the Burke Museum's photos for comparisons: WTU Herbarium Image Collection - Burke Museum WTU Herbarium Image Collection - Burke Museum
Thanks again, and for the useful links. If I see the plant again, I'll try to note all the characters and then try the key. As there were just one or two plants, I couldn't justify sampling !
