WALLFLOWER 137 



Fumitory, and lutea is Latin for yellow, in allusion to the colour of the 

 flowers. The English names are Lady's Pincushion, Mother of 

 Thousands, Pincushion. 



The plant is commonly grown in gardens, being an easily-cultivated 

 plant, covering bare walls, and very prolific, the ordinary loamy garden 

 soil being suited to it. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



21. Corydalis lutea, D.C. Stems erect, angular, leaves 3-ternate, 

 lobed, bracts oblong, flowers large, in racemes, spur incurved, short, 

 pods compressed, many-seeded. 



Wallflower (Cheiranthus Cheiri, L.) 



Long cultivated as it has been no seeds of the Wallflower have 

 been discovered in early beds. It is confined to the North Temperate 

 Zone in Central and North Europe. Everywhere it is only naturalized, 

 being an alien plant which has become established solely on account of 

 being a garden plant, easily propagated by seed, the amount of which, 

 as in most Cruciferse, is enormous. 



Like the yellow-flowered Wall Fumitory, the Wallflower, too, is 

 a rock plant. Its occurrence on old ruins may sometimes mark the 

 only remnants of a former domestic use of such buildings. Castle walls 

 and enclosures are a frequent stronghold of the so-called Wild Wall- 

 flower. With it one may find the Martagon Lily and the Star-of- 

 Bethlehem, these last being fond of humus but not rock habitats. 



The plant is shrubby, having a smooth, stout main stem, or with 

 a few hairs, with numerous ascending branches forked from the base. 

 The leaves, which are entire, lance-shaped, and having appressed forked 

 hairs, which are numerous, help to give it this shrub-like character. 

 The hairs protect the plant from loss of moisture or from the sun. 



The flowers are large, in racemes, the sepals erect, i in. across, 

 fragrant, and in cultivation many-coloured. The stigma is bilobed with 

 bent-back lobes, the pods are long and not transversely divided, but 

 square. The pod opens by 2 valves all the way, and is divided by 

 narrow compartments. The seeds are oblong, have a membranous 

 oval border, and are in a single row in each cell. The valve of each 

 pod has a rib in the centre. The embryo fills the seed, and the coty- 

 ledons are egg-shaped, flat, and pressed face to face. 



The Wallflower reaches a height of i-i^ ft. It is in flower from 

 April to June or July. It is an evergreen undershrub, perennial, and 

 propagated by seed. 



