The butterfly Small Blue might appeal to one of the Conservatives, but conservationists will be hoping politicians do not worry too much about being associated with the Grizzled Skipper, the fungus Purple Earth Tongue, or the Common Toad.

University of Chicago Press, 2011 Medusa brittlestem, hawthorn twiglet, olive earth­tongue—welcome to the weird and wonderful world of fungi, where the species have names that sound as though they could have been plucked from the pages of Harry Potter.

"My father told me that in some Earth tongue that name meant 'love'." ever, perhaps, was so strange a feast held as that with which Axelson entertained his guests that day.

I leaned back more comfortably, happy, as always, to hear my native Earth tongue, and to speak it.