32 ADDISONIA 
for his interest in natural science. He was acquainted with many 
of the scientists of his day, at home and abroad, and was interested 
in the introduction of useful plants into the United States. 
The twin-leaf grows in rich woods, showing a decided preference 
for calcareous soils, from northern New York to Wisconsin and 
northeastern Iowa, and southward to Tennessee. It is not a 
native of the valley of the Hudson, but has been grown successfully 
in the herbaceous grounds of the New York Botanical Garden, and 
these cultivated plants have supplied the leaves, flowers, and fruits 
figured in our plate. 
There is another species of Jeffersonia in eastern Asia. This 
peculiar distribution, in eastern North America and eastern Asia, 
with no known occurrence between, is shared by several genera of 
the may-apple family, and has been remarked in many other groups 
of flowering plants. 
The twin-leaf is a low perennial herb. From near the tip of a 
short erect or ascending underground stem there arises in early 
spring a slender, erect, leafless flower-stalk, from four to ten inches 
high, with a cluster of sheathing scales and foliage-leaves at its base 
of the other, but with outline and venation reversed; hence 
common name ‘‘twin-leaf.”” Each half of the leaf-blade is acute 
tually the flower-stalk elongates, often to a foot or more in length, 
and the flower is succeeded by a pod half an inch to an inch long, 
the lower two-thirds turbinate and the upper third conic; it first 
opens by a transverse slit along the line of the greatest diameter, 
this slit extending and gaping open, until finally the conic tip 1S 
reflexed, and attached to the body of the pod merely by a narrow 
hinge. J. H. BARNHART. 
_ EXPLANATION OF Piatg. Figs. 1-3.—Leaves. Fig. 4.—Expanding flower, 
with sepals at apex. Figs, 5 and 6.—Flowers. Figs. 7 and §.—Stamens, X 3. 
Fig. 9.—Pistil, X 2. Fig. 10,—Capsule. Fig, 11—Dehiscent capsule. 
