XCIX.— THE WALLFLOWER. 
Cheiranthus Cheiri Linne. 
T he bright green foliage and clear yellow blossoms of the Wallflower adorning 
the rugged tops of the grey ruined walls of some Norman keep, or the remnant 
rubble of an abbey erstwhile far more extensive, carries the mind back through a 
long vista of mediaeval medicine and ancient commerce. In a truly wild state, where 
they may inhabit rocks rather than ruins, the small genus Cheiranthus is probably 
native to the warmer, sunnier, drier regions of the Mediterranean. The forked or 
stellate hairs close pressed to the surfaces of stem and leaf are a suitable protection 
there against excessive transpiration : there the large bright blossoms have sun to 
spread themselves under, to increase their secretion of honey, and to bring out their 
fragrance ; and, even at the early season at which they expand, there are plenty of 
long-tongued insects to reach their sweet stores. Here their sturdy, slightly woody, 
perennial stems enable them to survive as aliens in a less favoured clime. 
To us there does not appear to be much connection between a Wallflower and a 
Violet ; but Stocks and Wallflowers seem to have been known to the early Greek 
botanists as X^vkolov, leukoion^ from XeuKo?, leukos, white, and lov, ion, a violet, a 
name literally translated later into Latin as Viola alba, one kind of which, our 
Wallflower, was known even down to the time of Ray as Leucojum luteum, literally 
“ the yellow white violet ” ; whilst Tabernaemontanus a century before had called 
it Viola petr^a lutea, and even to-day it is known in Guernsey as Violette de chdte, 
the Castle Stock. 
It was probably to the great world’s mart at Alexandria that Arab navigators 
first brought from India the dried flower-buds of Eugenia caryophyllata Thunberg, the 
nail-like form of which gave them the name of cloves, the French clou ; and when, 
at a later date, the tree that bore them became known to botanists, the resemblance 
of its foliage to that of the Walnut, then known as Kapva, karua, gained it the name 
of Caryophyllus aromaticus. The costly Indian spice was soon recognised as a valuable 
carminative and cordial, good for all diseases of the heart — a literal heart’s-ease ; 
and the European physicians were glad to be able to suggest a cheaper substitute in 
the blossoms of Dianthus Caryophyllus Linne, our Clove Carnation, a native of the 
Mediterranean area, which have the same scent. The originally Greek name 
Caryophyllon became for Albert the Great garioHlus, and later the French girojlee and 
our English ^/7/^owrr ; and a spirit essence of the flowers of the Carnation became 
the popular cordial Gilliflower water, or, as their name Sops-in-wine tells us, they were 
also otherwise administered. The occurrence of this Carnation alike on the walls of 
Falaise, the birthplace of William the Conqueror, and on those of the castles of Dover 
and Rochester, so intimately associated with him and his companions in arms, suggests 
that the plant may have been introduced into England by the Norman builders 
of those strongholds. But, whilst these summer flowers were the Gilliflowers par 
