Amelia blushed at the realization that Kerry HAD said that about the puffapods. Snapping back to her notes and textbook, she thought that she must have been more troubled then she originally thought. Why couldn't she just pay attention like she used to? Sighing she shook her head apologetically...

"Sorry Kerry. I didn't mean to. Er, anyway, all I keep thinking about if these two plants merged is this picture I saw from about 50 years ago of the infamous Dolores Umbridge." she tried hard to refrain from laughing at this thought.

Jasmine looked at Amelia a moment until she remembered who she was referring too. Then she couldn't help but giggle at what she had said.

Kerry had to laugh, "now why'd you go and put that image in my head, that's scary enough for me to lose focus for the rest of the class." Kerry said shaking her head. "But we really need to get this done, I mean I like this class and all, but I don't feel like being here all night." Kerry laughed. "Ideas people! Let's go!" Kerry smirked, giving Amelia a mischievous glare.

Jasmine agreed with what Kerry said and tried to think of some ideas. "Well,we could end up with pink daffodils that spontaniously burst into more flowers or yellow puffapods that hink loudly, or maybe a cobonation of both. A puffy, pink and yellow daffodil that when dropped, honks loudly as it spews forth more flowers."

"Oooh those are some good ideas! What is we had a puffy pink daffodil that honks loudly when dropped and spews forth yellow puffapods. That would certainly be a mixup of things" Kerry laughed.

Jasmine giggled at Kerry's theory and said, "Yes. And it would be quite colorful! I bet Weasley's shop would buy them from us."


ooc: sorry guys I'm beat and I need to be at work in....less than 5 hours... Luffs yous!

"You're the one with the herbology skills...any chance we could actually develop this flower?" Kerry laughed, realizing she was getting off track but enjoying the conversation anyway.

"Ok, so we have an idea... or at least I think we do. What was the next part of the assignment?"

Kennedy smiled in response to the girl's compliment and then replied, "Well, I guess we should decide which of the hybrid pairs we want to discuss. How about I pick one pair and you pick another and we discuss those? I personally like the idea of Sneezewort and Alihotsy. What about you?"

"I suppose those are as good as any to start with, I would also like to discuss the Screechsnap and Mallowsweet, if that is alright." She brought out parchment and a quill. "Alright then, Sneezewort and Alihotsy, what are the properties of these plants." She was speaking more to herself than to Kennedy.

She began saying as she wrote "Sneezewort: A kind of yarrow, the powdered leaves of which are said to cause sneezing. It is most efficacious in the inflaming of the brain, and is used in Confusing and Befuddlement Draughts.

Alihotsy: the leaves causes the person that ingests the leaves hysteria, a state of mind, one of unmanageable fear or emotional excesses."

She smirked thinking of the plant these two parent when they would hybrid. Something that confuses, making you sneeze and causes fear... I'm beginning to like this Ravenclaw more and more. She thought to herself with a smirk. "What will this hybrid plant be called?"

At Kerry's question, Jasmine tilted her head to the side and thought a moment. "Well, we would have to make sure that the two plants are compatable on some level I suppose. There are many different types of hybrization so we need to find which one fits. First there is the result of interbreeding between two plants of different taxa. Hybrids between different species within the same genus are sometimes known as interspecific hybrids or crosses. Then there are hybrids between different sub-species within a specieswhich are called intra-specific hybrids. Oh! And hybrids between different genera are sometimes known as intergeneric hybrids as well. Sometimes, extremely rare interfamilial hybrids have been known to occur, like guineafowl. Now we want to create a hybrid that shows specific characteristics of each plant. So..." Jasmine took a second to try and think how to start. "Well, I guess we should figure out the taxa of both plants first." Jasmine took a moment to giggle as she said," The best way to remember the broad scheme of ranks in hierarchical order is to think Dignified Kings Play Chess On Fine Green Silk". Jasmine took her quill and wrote it all down on the parchment in front of her.
"See? Although, technically, we should say Division rather than Phylum since we are dealing with plants and not animals." Now that she was talking about it, Jasmine felt a little of her "old" self get excited about Herbology again.

Qaz was looking over the options and one caught her eye. Screechsnap was a semi-sentient plant and Mallowsweet was burned. She wondered if the hybrid would also be semi-sentient. If it was, she didn’t think it would be very ethical to burn it.

Erikson made his rounds once more, checking on his students. "So how's everyone doing?" He walked up to Kennedy and Cassandra, having been a little worried about Cassandra's competitive nature. "How are you two doing? Alright?"

Kennedy took notes at the same time as Cassandra, contemplating the naming possibilities. Kennedy spoke aloud, "Hmmm... I'm actually having trouble coming up with a good name. Everything I think of to try to combine the two sound pretty lame actually. You have any ideas?"

Kennedy looked up from Cassandra to Professor Erikson. "We're doing ok. Trying to come up with a good name for a hybrid between Alihotsy and sneezewort. Then we're going to move onto Screechnap and mallowsweet."

"Well... we have hysteria and confusion, How about A Phobic Mind? Arboris Alihotsy x sneezewort. Would you agree?" Cassandra asked Kennedy.

Cassandra blushed as he passed by her. "Yes Professor... I... well... We'll be fine." She tried to concentrate on the task at hand but her eyes kept wanting to follow the professor.

Jasmine stopped a moment and shook her head with a rueful smile, "I think I am making this more complicated than need be." Looking at the other two girls, she went on to say,"OK so know what characteristics we want our hybrid to have, thats good. But, what do we call it?"After thinking for a moment Jasmine giggled and threw out some names, "Maybe a daffipod? Or a honkypuff? Oh! I know! How about a honkapuffadillapod?"

Amelia was quite amused by this acronym for the scheme of of ranks that Jas had mentioned. Stifling a giggle, she wrote down everything that her friend had said, as she felt completely clueless to it all. She skimmed through her notes to see what else the Professor wanted them to do: What might it look like? What could it do? And what would you call it?

They had already discussed what it might look like and also what it could do, so the one thing left to do was naming it. Then it hit Amelia like a brick! That's what Jas was getting at with this taxa stuff... herbology was making slight sense to her now! With a new, sudden burst of inspiration, she skimmed through her book to find the taxonomy on the two plants they picked: Honking Daffodil and Puffapod.

"Well, if we need to work on naming these plants first, with I guess more scientific names or perhaps how to combine their names. I don't think the Professor would be pleased with a 'honkpod." she paused to hopefully keep from laughing at this term. "Anyway, I've started off by filling in that hierarchy that Jas pointed out, which you can look at here." She pointed to her parchment:

Quote:

Domain
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Anthophyta (flowering plant)
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

"As you could see, I really wasn't too sure about anything other than the kingdom or Plantae. More important than the taxonomy part of this discussion though, is how we might combine them. Or did we already discuss that?" She sighed, as she felt so hopeless at this stuff.

Jasmine stuck her tongue out at Amelia's rejection of her honkypod name and laughed. Then feeling a bit playful, she said,"Well, let's see.." Looking over at the professor, she put on a straight face and said quite seriously, "Professor Erikson. Which do you like better? Plantae Anthophyta OR Honkapuffadillapod?"
However, she immediately burst into giggles a soon as she finished saying her name for the hybrid.

Amelia could not believe her ears when she heard what Jas just asked the professor. She was officially in tears from laughing so hard; especially with the honkapuffa-whatever name. "Uh, Jas, I didn't want the plantae anthophyta as a name. That was just some background info on the two plants. And personally, I think the second name you mentioned it too long." She stretched the truth with this last sentence, as in reality, it made Amelia giggle too much every time it was said.

"In all seriousness, I think it should be something like 'Anthodaffipod' which will incorporate the two plants, and also the division name, so you know that it's a flowering plant."

Jasmine giggled again as she noticed Amelia was having trouble trying not to laugh. It felt good to laugh for a change she thought. Still smiling she said to her friend,"OK,OK, I suppose that was a bit silly. And that's a great name Amelia. OK then We need to figure out how to cross them..."

Amelia had to admit that Jas knew how to make Herbology entertaining, and she half wondered why she never bothered to work with her last term. It did feel really great to be laughing, as she had been working so hard the past few weeks that she felt imprisoned. "Really? you think it's a good name? .. I really wasn't serious in it." Her cheeks reddened a bit, and she looked down at her book as a way to avoid eye contact. "Well, I guess we could use that, but I want to wait and see what Kerry says about the name first. Regardless, we could still move on to the combining process."

She hesitated for a few moments as she read over the chapter on flowering plants again. "It seems perhaps, just putting the seeds in the same pot may do the trick, but I am sure there is a faster way..." her voice trailed off, as she felt herself gliding back in her chair and feeling a little sweaty, just as she did a few days ago.

"OK We will hold off on the name for now. Although, it will always be a honkapuffadillapod to me... Well, it will take a bit more than that to cross them I'm afraid. I'm not quite sure on how to do it as a puffapod idoes not exhibit a " normal" plant like structure." Jasmine sighed, then looked puzzled at Amelia's somewhat odd behavior. "Are you OK Amelia?"

Amelia struggled for her messenger bag, where she managed to pull out a bar of honeyduke's chocolate. She broke off a piece and munched on it; within a minute, her color started to come back and she felt strong enough to sit up straight. She used the sleeve her robe to wipe the sweat from her brow, and then noticed Jas looking at her strangely.

"Err.. yea, I'm fine. I get like that sometimes, especially when I haven't eaten in awhile. It's a relative recent condition that I seemed to have developed over the summer." She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, "By the way, did you want a piece?" she asked holding up the the chocolate.

"That's too bad that it takes more to combine the two plants. Why must things be so complex?" she sighed.


ooc: bed time. i'll continue this later...

Erikson nodded to the girls, chuckling. "Very good, you two." He glanced down to see what notes they'd taken so far and heard Jasmine calling him. He made his way over to the trio of girls. "I heard some odd names over here. How are things going?"

ooc: I guess I'll leave this up as long as you guys are having fun. I'll assign homework once you've all gotten tired of figuring out your hybrids.

"No thank you," Jasmine waved off the chocolate with a look of worry for her friend. Answerring her question she went on to say," Who said Herbology wasn't complex? All of nature is complex if you think about it. Anyways, there are several different grafting methods, we just need to find the right one... "Opening her text, Jasmine started to peruse the pages when Professor Erikson walked over. "Oh, Hi professor. Well we were discussing the possible hybrid of a honking daffidil and a puffapod. The girls seem to lean toward a more scientific name like Plantae Anthophyta. I of course find Honkapuffadillapod much more interesting. We were about to discuss possible grafting methods."


ooc: sweet dreams Jess!

Kennedy nodded her head and smiled, "Sounds good to me! So what do you think this plant will look like when combined? I remember that sneezewort has loose clusters of white, button-like flowers and thin, dark green leaves. Wouldn't it be great if the hybrid only took on the appearance of one plant but had the qualities of both? Then people would think it would simply cause one effect, but in actuality it would have both. Kind of like how Flitterbloom resembles Devil's Snare but is non-violent. Obviously it's not exactly the same situation because they're not hybrids, at least I don't think they are, but it does illustrate my point about looking the same but having different qualities."