James Westwood Wallace (ca. 1769–1838), a relative of George Wythe, studied medicine at Edinburgh University and lived near Warrenton in Fauquier County. He and TJ had exchanged information on the medicinal properties of plants (PTJ, esp. 41:304–5; “Old Kecoughtan,” WMQ description begins William and Mary Quarterly, 1892– description ends , 1st ser., 9 [1900]: 130–1; Richmond Enquirer, 11 Sept. 1838).

TJ asked Wallace for these articles in a letter of 28 Feb. 1809 (ViU: TJP), and in a note of the same date to Edmund Bacon (MHi) asked him to deliver the request to Wallace on his way to Washington and collect the specimens about 10 or 11 Mar. 1809 at Fauquier Court House during his return trip to Monticello.

jeffersonia antivenena was probably Wallace’s idiosyncratic name for Jeffersonia diphylla, or Twinleaf. Native to the northern and western states, it was first identified by John Clayton and then found in the Blue Ridge Mountains by André Michaux in 1791. Benjamin Smith Barton named it in honor of TJ the following year on behalf of the American Philosophical Society. TJ probably never saw it in the wild but was growing it at Monticello in 1807. Twinleaf, also known as “rheumatism root,” has medicinal qualities concentrated in the root. It acts as a stimulant and when used as described by Wallace can increase capillary circulation or wash sores and ulcers. Prenanthes serpentaria (Lion’s foot) and Alisma plantago-aquatica (water plantain) had been used on snakebites in Virginia, a remedy learned from the Indians (Lucia Stanton, “A Botanical Anniversary,” Twinleaf Journal [1992]; Betts, Garden Book description begins Edwin M. Betts, ed., Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book, 1766–1824, 1944 description ends , 172–3, 335, and plate 11; William Cook, The Physio-medical Dispensatory: A Treatise on Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and Pharmacy [1869], 298; Richard Harlan, “Experiments Made on the Poison of the Rattlesnake,” APS, Transactions 3 [1830]: 301–2; Reuben Gold Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 1748–1846 [1904–07], 22:95–6).

balsam copaiba: a tropical tree, copaiba balsam grows up to one hundred feet in height, and its oily resin is used for a wide variety of medicinal purposes both internal and external. marvel of peru: Mirabilis jalapa, or four-o’clock, is a tropical American species whose flower blossoms open late in the afternoon. wax work flower: Celastrus scandens, or American bittersweet, also known as Waxwork. (Hortus Third description begins Liberty Hyde Bailey, Ethel Zoe Bailey, and the staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University, Hortus Third: A Concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada, 1976 description ends , 239–40, 735).