On summer evenings he would sit out on the lawn, with a folio balanced on his knee, and do violence to Mr. Swiggs's ears with such learned terms as "Boraginiae," "cucurbitaceae," "Leguminosae," and as winter drew in, master and man would hold long consultations indoors over certain plants, the portraits of which in the herbals seemed familiar enough, though their habitats often proved, on further reading, to lie no nearer than Arabia Felix or the Spice Islands.
"The Blue Pavilions"
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
Seekers for derivations of signs had puzzled themselves a good deal over the connection between a bull and that familiar gourd of the cucurbitaceae known as a cucumber.
"The Parson O' Dumford"
George Manville Fenn