In Castlereagh's memory, Pomona had not been wearing earrings.
Severus still remembered how fiercely she had resisted when he first put that snowflake earring on her, because it had been enchanted with dark magic: whenever he came near her ears, they would grow hot.
Mimosa was not merely a plant with an interesting reaction, folding its leaves at the slightest disturbance. It also had a peculiar property: harmless and nonpoisonous during the day, it became toxic at night. Though not as potent as aconite or foxglove, it could still cause respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.
The antidote was gastric lavage, or making the victim vomit with an emetic.
Ipecac was a plant discovered by early Portuguese settlers and used as an emetic. Besides quinine, Pelletier had also discovered emetine in ipecac, which could be used to treat scorpion stings.
Ordinary people had no need to know such things, but as a Potions scholar who often had to assist the school nurse with students fond of bringing unusual pets to school, and teachers who had been poisoned without knowing how to deal with it, he needed to know.
Besides Newt Scamander, France also had scholars of magical creatures. François Marie Doudan was one of them, but his legs were afflicted by illness, so he could not travel the world like Newt Scamander. All he had for research material were specimens. The book that bankrupted him, and was also the grandest work of his life, was called The Natural History of Reptiles. In it, he described 517 species of reptiles. The new genera he established, such as Bungarus, Python, and Takydromus, were still in use today.
But compared with those reptiles, people still preferred Occamies and Mooncalves. At least they had splendid or fluffy appearances. Snakes, aside from being loathsome, also represented