''Argentina pacifica'', sometimes called pacific silverweed, silverweed cinquefoil, or simply silverweed, is a low-growing

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

(6") with pinnately compound green leaves with silvery undersides. It is a member of the

species aggregate In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...

known as ''

Argentina anserina ''Argentina anserina'' (synonym ''Potentilla anserina'') is a perennial flowering plant in the rose family, Rosaceae. It is known by the common names silverweed, common silverweed or silver cinquefoil. It is native throughout the temperate North ...

'' or ''Potentilla anserina''. The yellow, saucer-shaped flowers appear late spring through summer. Pacific silverweed spreads very quickly in moist areas. Preferring salt marshes, river estuaries and shorelines, they are often seen growing alongside springbank clover. They need sun and regular water. Pacific silverweed is important in

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

coastal indigenous cultures. Indigenous people dig for its edible roots. As an important vegetable, families maintained rights to access patches through potlatch law. New plants can grow from small root fragments, and with some attention families could guarantee patches persisted for generations "over hundreds, even thousands of years". Northwest Coast peoples used to dig them in spring with yew-wood shovels before pit-cooking them or boiling them with

eulachon The eulacheon ( (''Thaleichthys pacificus''), also spelled oolichan , ooligan , hooligan ), also called the candlefish, is a small anadromous species of smelt that spawns in some of the major river systems along the Pacific coast of North Ameri ...

grease. Cooked roots have a slightly bitter sweet-potato flavour. Northwest Coast peoples also washed them or mashed them into cakes and dried them for winter.

References

pacifica Groundcovers Plants described in 1898 {{Rosoideae-stub