"_
"Well," said Vizard, "I think the individual names can only hurt the jaws
and other organs of speech. But the classification! Is the mild luster of
science to be cast over the natural disposition of young women toward
_Polyandria monogynia?_ Is trigamy to be identified in their sweet souls
with floral innocence, and their victims sitting by?"
"Such classifications are puerile and fanciful," said Miss Gale; "but,
for that very reason, they don't infect _animals_ with trigamy. Novels
are much more likely to do that."
"Especially ladies' novels," suggested Vizard, meekly.
"Some," suggested the accurate Rhoda. "But the sexes will never lose
either morals or delicacy through courses of botany endured together. It
will not hurt young ladies a bit to tell them in the presence of young
gentlemen that a cabbage is a thalamifioral exogen, and its stamens are
tetradynamous; nor that the mushroom, _Psalliata campestris,_ and the
toad-stool, _Myoena campestris,_ are confounded by this science in one
class, _Cryptogamia._ It will not even hurt them to be told that the
properties of the _Arum maculatum_ are little known, but that the males
are crowded round the center of the spadix, and the females seated at the
base.
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