'No it isn't; it is easier and easier. See, these belong to one family; so you learn to know them as relations, and then you can remember them.'
'How do you know they are of the same family?'
'Well, they have the family features. They all have an acrid sap or juice, exogenous plants, with many stamens. These are the stamens, do you know? They have calyx and corolla both, and the corolla has separate petals, see; and the Ranunculaceae have the petals and sepals deciduous, and the leaves generally cut, as you see these are. They are what you may call a bitter family; it runs in the blood, that is to say, in the juice of them; and a good many of the members of the family are downright wicked, that is, poisonous.'
'Pitt, you talk very queerly?'
'Not a bit more queer than the things are I am talking of. Now this Sanguinaria belongs to the Papaveraceae—the poppy family.'
'Does it! But it does not look like them, like poppies.'
'This coloured juice that you see when you break the stem, is one of the family marks of this family. I won't trouble you with the others. But you must learn to know them, Queen Esther. King Solomon knew every plant from the royal cedar to the hyssop on the wall; and I am sure a queen ought to know as much. Now the blood of the Papaveraceae has a taint also; it is apt to have a narcotic quality.'
'What is narcotic?'
'Putting to sleep.'
'That's a good quality.'