Anserina: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this species.   plant herb-like; NOT shrubby, NOT woody based plants of drier habitats; NOT [a decumbent plant of aquatic and marshy habitats] low creeping plant with runners leaves basal leaves pinnate leaves silver-white below flowers solitary on long naked peduncles, mostly from the nodes of stolons; flowers NOT [few to many, born in terminal cymes] flowers yellow; NOT white, NOT reddish purple achenes generally smooth; NOT hairy

 

Potentilla: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this genus.  These answers do not apply to all members of Potentilla found on the Canadian prairies, but they do apply to P. anserina. herbs, or with a woody base and otherwise herbaceous; NOT shrubs, NOT trees leaves compound; NOT [simple, usually toothed] leaves NOT much dissected into linear lobes basal leaves with more than 3 leaflets hypanthium LACKING hooked prickles calyx double, with 2 rings of lobes, the outer ones smaller than the inner; calyx NOT [simple, of 5 lobes] petals usually longer than the sepals; petals NOT [small, little if any longer than the sepals] stamens 10-many; NOT 5 carpels 10-many; NOT 5-20, NOT 2 (Flora of Alberta) style articulated at base and deciduous from the achene; NOT jointed near the middle, NOT [hooked or plumose], NOT persisting in the fruit style much shorter than the achene; NOT [much longer than the achene] carpels becoming achenes (sometimes on a fleshy receptacle); carpels NOT [becoming druplets (raspberry-like)]

Rosaceae: Answers to key questions in Budd's Flora leading to this family. herbs; NOT shrubs, NOT trees plants terrestrial or semi-aquatic; plants NOT aquatic, leaves NOT submerged, leaves NOT floating plants NOT with colored milky juice plants with more than one normal leaf some or all leaves alternate leaves with stipules flowers with two floral rings, and with each petal distinct from the others flowers regular in shape calyx regular stamens usually separate or partly so; NOT in a column stamens usually numerous; NOT [5 or 10] ovary of one or more carpels, either separate or enclosed by a fleshy receptacle; NOT ovary of 5 united carpels