Steven is enamoured of Stella, love child of Rudolf and Flora, and pursues her throughout the wilderness of Africa. Nicholas and Gustav are rivals for the hand of Louisa, who sets them a contest, ICBN rules. Stella is eventually cornered in the Hanging Gardens of Mesa, where she settles to raise a family (several thousand actually). Gustav mortally wounds Nicholas with a protolog, but himself dies of an overdose of priory tea. Louisa takes unholy vows of non-silence and withdraws to a herbarium to spend the remaining 101 years of her tragically short life splitting hairs. Steven finally espouses Stella and changes her name with a wedding gift of new combinations.