use strict;
use warnings;

use DBI;

my @fields = ( qw/ Genus Species Cultivar Common_Name / );
my $field = get_field( @fields );
my $value = get_value( $field );

# Omitted: code to connect to DB
my $select_query = qq/ select * from plant where $field = '$value' /;
# Omitted: code to execute, fetch and deallocate SQL query

sub get_field {
  # Highly simplified for testing purposes
  return $_[3]; 
}

sub get_value {
  print $_[0], ': ';
  chomp ( my $choice = <STDIN> ); # <- Problem here!
  return $choice;
}