“Is that a centaurea?”
“I beg your pardon?” Prescott looked blank. “Oh, you mean my buttonhole. I don’t know. I just stop at the florist’s and select something.”
“You wear a flower without knowing its name?”
“Certainly. Why not?”
Wolfe shrugged. “I never saw a centaurea of that color before.”
“It isn’t,” Mrs. Dunn put in impatiently. “A centaurea cyanus has a much closer formation—”
“I didn’t say centaurea cyanus, madam.” Wolfe sounded testy. “I had in mind centaurea leucophylla.”
“Oh. I’ve never seen one. Anyway, that isn’t a centaurea leuco-anything. It’s a dianthus superbus.”
April started to laugh. May smiled at her as Einstein would smile at a kitten. June darted her eyes that way and April stopped laughing and said in her famous rippling voice:
“You win, Juno. It’s a dianthus superbus. I don’t mind your always being right, not a bit, but when anything strikes me as funny it’s my nature to laugh. And, I might inquire, was I dragged down here to hear you treat the audience to a spot of botany?”