Linnaea borealis  Linnaea borealis is a species of flowering plant in the family Caprifoliaceae (the honeysuckle family). Until 2013, it was the only species in the genus "Linnaea". It is a boreal to subarctic woodland subshrub, commonly known as twinflower (sometimes written twin flower). This plant was a favorite of Carl Linnaeus, founder of the modern system of binomial nomenclature, for whom the genus was named. The perennial stems of "Linnaea borealis" are slender, pubescent, and prostrate, growing to long, with opposite evergreen rounded oval leaves long and broad. The flowering stems curve erect, to tall, and are leafless except at the base. The flowers are paired, pendulous, long, with a five-lobed, pale pink corolla. "Linnaea borealis" was first formally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 in "Species Plantarum". It was then the sole species in the genus "Linnaea". The genus name had been used earlier by the Dutch botanist Jan Frederik Gronovius, and was given in honour of Linnaeus. Linnaeus adopted the name because "Linnaea borealis" was his favourite plant. "Linnaea borealis" is considered to be a single circumboreal species, with three generally recognized subspecies:  The English name "twinflower" for "Linnaea borealis" refers to the plant's paired flowers. "Linnaea borealis" has a circumpolar distribution in moist subarctic, boreal, or cool temperate forests, extending further south at higher elevations in various mountains, in Europe south to the Alps, in Asia south to northern Japan, and in North America south to northern California and to Arizona and New Mexico in the west, and to West Virginia (and formerly Tennessee) in the Appalachian Mountains in the east. "Linnaea borealis" is self-incompatible, requiring cross-pollination to produce viable seeds; since pollen dispersal is usually not far, individuals and clonal colonies can become reproductively isolated. Regardless of seed production, "Linnaea" plants in a particular area often spread by stolons to form clonal patches of the same genotype. Such clonal stands of "Linnaea" can be long-persisting, in some places remaining extant even if seed is not produced or if seedling germination or establishment does not occur.