THE WALL-FLOWER 263 
Among the chief ornaments with which the cruciferous 
family supply our gardens is the stock. This flower, with 
its dark-purple, red, or white blossoms, is too fragrant 
and too beautiful not to be generally cultivated. As we 
have two species of wild stock (Mathiola), it is thought 
by some botanists to have been raised from the little sea- 
side flower j but it is most probably derived from the 
finer kinds which grow wild in the south of Europe. It 
was formerly called dame’s-violet, perhaps because the 
dames or ladies of olden times took pleasure in rearing it. 
The cross-shaped form must, of course, be looked for in 
the single flowers, as cultivation renders the blossoms like 
dark-coloured roses. Then, we have the rockets (Hes- 
peris), some of them fragrant in the evening; the purple 
honesty, with its silvery pellicles, whose transparent riature 
has procured for it its familiar name, while the crescent- 
shaped seeds have caused it also to be called moonwort, 
and their soft texture made the old name of satin-flower 
very suitable. The pretty candytufts, one of which, the 
white kind (Iberis semperflorens), remains in blossom all 
the year. The purple species was the first known to us; 
and as it was found wild in Candia, it has given the name 
to all the genus. The alyssums are also pretty summer 
flowers, especially the common yellow sort (Alyssum saxa- 
tile). The ancient Greeks thought that this plant, if taken 
internally, allayed anger. 
