To Thomas Jefferson from Constantine S. Rafinesque, 23 July 1804
From Constantine S. Rafinesque
Washington 23rd July 1804
Sir.
An excursion of a few days, I took into Virginia the day after having had the honor of being presented to you, prevented me from calling again upon you before this day; when I heard you had departed for Monticello I therefore take the liberty of adressing you this Letter for the purpose of conveying you, at least, a small parcell of the seeds of the Jeffersonia binata, I intended to have presented you with, at my second interview, together with one dry capsul of the plant for a specimen of its fruit.
Wishing they may grow with you, I remain with the sincerest esteem—Sir Your most obedt Servt.
C. S. Rafinesque
The Jeffersonia binata was called formerly Podophyllum diphyllum by Linneus and was quite lately named J. bartoni by Michaux (in his flora boreali-Americana) but Dr Barton’s name being the best suited is to be retained—
I am collecting materials and informations for a compleat flora of the middle atlantic States, my interview with you having been so short, I have been prevented from asking you if it was in your power to add any of either to my already extensive stock of them; any thing new in that way and in whatever relates in the least to native plants would be gratefully received and acknowledged by Yr anew Obt. St.
RC (ViW: Tucker-Coleman Collection); at foot of first page, below signature: “T.I.Y.P.” (for “turn over if you please,” a translation of T.S.V.P., “tournez s’il vous plait”); postscript on verso; at foot of text: “C. S. Rafinesque—Care, Mr. L. Tarascon Philadelphia”; endorsed by TJ as received 28 July and so recorded in SJL.
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840) was a Turkish-born naturalist of German-French descent. He grew up mostly in Italy and France and emigrated to the United States in 1802, becoming a clerk in a Philadelphia mercantile firm. Beginning in the summer of 1803, he made an extended botanical tour of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia and visited Senator Robert Wright of Maryland, who wrote a letter of introduction for him to the president. Rafinesque moved to Italy in 1805, residing in Sicily for ten years and actively classifying plants and animals. In November 1806, he was appointed an agent for Abraham Gibbs, the American consul in Palermo. Upon his return to the United States in 1815, he further developed his own classification system, published extensively, and continued to travel to collect specimens. He became a professor of botany and natural history at Transylvania University in Kentucky in 1819 and thereafter frequently inquired of TJ about similar employment at the University of Virginia (; Rafinesque, A Life of Travels and Researches in North America and the South of Europe [Philadelphia, 1836], 21; Gibbs to Madison, 10 Nov. 1806, in DNA: RG 59, CD, Palermo; Edwin M. Betts, “The Correspondence Between Constantine Samuel Rafinesque and Thomas Jefferson,” , Proceedings, 87, pt. 5 [1944], 368-80; Charles Boewe, The Life of C. S. Rafinesque: A Man of Uncommon Zeal [Philadelphia, 2011], 24-39, 46; Wright to TJ, 31 May 1804).
Jeffersonia binata: Benjamin Smith Barton, in a paper read to the American Philosophical Society in May 1792, described an American wildflower whose distinct genus seemed to merit a new name. Barton named the flower for TJ in recognition of his knowledge of natural history (, 172-3; 1:57-8n).