NATIVE PLANT
“Don’t even think about digging Jefersonia diphylla from the wild, or the President will come back to get you.” —Dr. Allan M. Armitage, Herbaceous Perennial Plants, Third Edition, 2008
Twinleaf With its pretty blooms and lovely foliage, this woodland beauty is double the fun. text stephen westcott-gratton
PHOTOGRAPHY, JOSHUA MCCULLOUGH/PHYTOPHOTO
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lthough twinleaf is native only to Ontario, it grows happily enough in gardens across the country, provided it’s given the woodland conditions it requires. When twinleaf is planted beneath deciduous trees in rich alkaline soil, it benefits from bare tree branches and sunny conditions while it blooms in spring, followed by a shaded leafy canopy that protects it from summer sun. The three-centimetre-wide
white flowers of twinleaf are often likened to those of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), but the two plants are unrelated. After flowering, twinleaf produces a pear-shaped seed pod topped with a lid (like an acorn), and the foliage expands to almost twice its springtime size. Where soils remain moist and shaded in the summer (a mulch of shredded leaves helps keep roots cool), twinleaf makes a fine groundcover, growing
25 centimetres tall by 35 centimetres wide. Twinleaf’s common name arose because each blue-green leaf is deeply divided into two equal lobes, giving the impression of two leaves rather than one. In 1792, the genus was named in honour of gardener, naturalist and third president of the United States Thomas Jeferson (1743-1826), and still grows at his Monticello plantation home.
TWINLEAF
(Jefersonia diphylla) Zone 5, native from Ontario west to Minnesota and south to Georgia.
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