The Early Feminist Who Used Botany to Teach Kids About Sex

“[A]re the male flowers of a vegetable marrow plant needless, or do they lead a useless life; seeing that they bear no fruit?’”To a modern reader, this simple question about plants seems innocuous, if a bit unfamiliar. But when Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy posed it at the end of the 19th century, it was radical. She …