Glabrous perennial herbs, with basal palmately-veined or palmately-lobed leaves, and solitary white flowers borne on slender scapes. Sepals 4, occasionally 3 or 5, petaloid, caducous. Petals 8, flat, longer than the sepals. Stamens 8; filaments slender; anthers dehiscent by valves. Pistil 1; ovary ovoid, many-ovuled; stigmas 2-lobed. Capsule leathery, pyriform, half-circumscissile near the summit. Seeds oblong, arillate. [In honor of Thomas Jefferson.]

A genus of 2 species, the typical one native of eastern North America, the other of Manchuria.

1. Jeffersonia Diphylla (L.) Pers. Twin-Leaf

Fig. 1960

Podophyllum diphyllum L. Sp. Pl. 505. 1753.

Jeffersonia binata B. S. Barton, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 3: 342. 1793. Jeffersonia Bartonis Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 1: 237. 1803. Jeffersonia diphylla Pers. Syn. 1: 418. 1805.

Erect, 6'-8' high when in flower, attaining i6'-i8' in fruit. Leaves glaucous beneath, long-petioled, cordate or reniform, 3'-6' long, 2'~4' wide, parted longitudinally into 2 obliquely ovate obtuse lobed or entire divisions; lobes rounded, the sinuses sometimes 9" deep; scape naked, i-flowered; flowers white, about 1' broad; petals oblong, stigma peltate; capsule about 1' long, short-stipitate.

In woods, eastern Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario to Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia and Tennessee. Ascends to 2500 ft. in Virginia. May. Ground-squirrel pea. Helmet-pod. Rheumatism-root.