Potentilla is a genus containing about 500 species of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the rose family Rosaceae. It is usually called cinquefoil in English. Potentilla discolor var. Herbs perennial. Roots robust, lower parts often enlarged and fusiform. Flowering stems erect, ascending, or subspreading, 10–45 cm tall, together with petioles densely white lanate, sometimes also villous. Radical leaves 4–20 cm including petiole; stipules brown, membranous, white villous; leaf blade with 2–4 pairs of leaflets.
Two new pentacyclic triterpenoids, 3alpha, 30-dihydroxylup-20(29)-en-27-oic acid (1) and (20S)-3alpha, 29-dihydroxylupan-27-oic acid (2) were isolated from the whole herbs of Potentilla discolor Bunge. The structures of these two new compounds were elucidated, and complete assignments of the (1)H and (13)C NMR spectroscopic data were achieved by 1D and 2D NMR experiments (HSQC, HMBC, (1)H-(1)HCOSY and ROESY).