54 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



has spread generally throughout England, and is now 

 found on most ancient walls. In the Isle of Wight, 

 where it is known as " Roving Jenny " and " Roving 

 Sailor," it flourishes at Carisbrooke Castle, on the 

 ruins at Quarr, and on old walls at Shorwell, Knighton, 

 and elsewhere. In America it has acquired the name 

 of Kenilworth Ivy, doubtless from its growing on the 

 walls of that castle which the genius of Scott has 

 made familiar to the world. It abounds on the vener- 

 able walls of St. Cross, Winchester, together with the 

 hairy rock-cress, or Arabis hirsuta. 



Of the plants which love to blossom on ancient walls 

 the most generally distributed is the wallflower. It 

 may be found on all the ruins in Hampshire— at 

 Wolvesey, Netley, Beaulieu, on the Norman keep at 

 Christchurch, where the flowers are of an exception- 

 ally pale colour, at Quarr and at Carisbrooke. But 

 nowhere is it to be seen in such profusion as at Port- 

 chester. The plants begin to flower early in March, 

 and by the first week in April are in full bloom. They 

 blossom everywhere — on the grey Roman walls, on 

 the mighty Norman keep, on the crumbling Plan- 

 tagenet ruins. Later on the walls of the great ban- 

 queting hall will be gay with the flowers of the red 

 valerian, with here and there a gigantic spike of the 

 yellow mullein. But the appearance of the castle is 

 never so picturesque as when the wallflowers are in 

 bloom. 



Another mural plant, nearly allied to the wallflower, 

 but easily to be distinguished by its far paler flowers, 

 is the wall-rocket {Diplotaxis tenuifolid). It cannot be 

 called rare, and the writer remembers seeing it, among 

 other places, at Dover Castle, at St. Osyth's Priory 

 in Essex, and on the monastic ruins at Dunwich, in 



