sheep cinquefoil, Potentilla ovina

I have not been able to discover what sheep cinquefoil has to do with sheep. Some of these names are an act of quiet desperation? There are so many different cinquefoils (about 400), that you start running out of ideas? And this one is only a bit different, achieving final status as a separate species in 1997. There is a rule for recognizing a name as the correct one for a plant called the rule of priority. Potentilla ovina beats out P. pinnatisecta by one month. Sometimes the difference in a plant name can be determined by the publication schedule of a periodical. Sheep fescue is a plant of dry open areas in the mountains of AK, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WY, AB, BC, and YT. Clear Creek Co CO, 6/18/13. Rose family, Rosaceae.