...May Flowers - Common Cinquefoil

We've all heard the rhyme "April showers bring May flowers", but just what blooms in May? 
Follow along as we post about a new flower every day in May, some familiar, some may be new, all beautiful in their unique sort of way!

Sometimes confused with wild strawberry, the common cinquefoil has compound palmate leaves heavily serrated. The long stem and stolons start out green but turn red with age. Bright yellow flowers with 5 (sometimes more) petals rise up on a long pedicel from the upper axis of leaves.

In medieval times...
"It was an ingredient in many spells in the Middle Ages, and was particularly used as a magic herb in love divinations. It was one of the ingredients of a special bait for fishing nets, which was held to ensure a heavy catch. This concoction consisted of corn boiled in thyme and marjoram water, mixed with nettles, cinquefoil and the juice of houseleek.In an old recipe called 'Witches' Ointment' the juice of Five-leaf Grass, smallage and wolfsbane is mixed with the fat of children dug up from their graves and added to fine wheat flour."
That last bit is most bizarre.