Wallflower is a plant we used to see in cottage gardens a generation ago, bringing a splash of yellow and orange in early spring, continuing to flower sporadically throughout the year. It isn’t so fashionable now, and the ones we see for sale in garden centres are cultivars: the flowers are brick-red or lilac and instead of being sold as ‘wallflower’ they are labelled in the modern way as ‘Erysimum’. The word ’Wallflower’ doesn’t excite, and isn’t in vogue for garden designers.
Wallflowers on a wall, Carlingford, County Louth, Ireland. Image: Chris Jeffree.
Where did this plant come from? No-one knows, but suggestions are that it arrived with the Caen limestone that William the Conqueror imported from Normandy to build his castles from 1066 onwards. It might have come earlier, perhaps with the Romans as a medicinal plant. We know it has been here a long time, as it features in folk stories. Here’s an example of a wallflower tale gleaned from the book Flowers and their Histories by Alice Coates.
Wallflowers in a group. Image: Chris Jeffree.
Alice Coates tells a poignant wallflower story from the time of King Robert III of Scotland (1337 – 1406). The action takes place at the Castle of Neidpath, near Peebles.
Elizabeth, the daughter of the Earl of March was betrothed to the heir of King Robert and confined to the castle. But she fell in love with an outsider, a young man from the borders. He disguised himself as a wandering minstrel and sang beneath her window. The song contained a plan to elope. She signalled agreement by dropping a sprig of wallflower from the window. When the time came, she procured a rope ladder to make the dangerous escape. However, it broke, she fell to the ground and died. He fled the country and roamed Europe, but always carried a wallflower sprig in his cap, in memory of his lost love. Other minstrels and poets copied him, and the flower became the symbol of faithfulness in adversity.
Wallflowers also occur in folk songs, especially this girls’ playground song.
Wallflower, wallflower growing up so high
All you young ladies have captured a pie
Except little Phoebe, she’s left in the cold
Though I’m a wallflower I mean to marigold
Poor little Phoebe, but next time round it would hopefully be another child in the group. This song may be the origin of “to be a wallflower”, the common idiom used in British and American English to describe a person who is shy, introverted, or socially reserved at parties, dances or social gatherings. A wallflower typically remains on the periphery of a group, observing rather than actively participating or mingling. Bob Dylan’s 1971 song Wallflower says it all (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQndCbvoM6s). Human wallflowers can be boys as well as girls, as in the 1990 novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower by the American author Stephen Chbosky. This coming-of-age book was considered outrageous and was banned in many American schools. Wallflowers (the plants) often grow as lone individuals on castle walls, and so they are good symbols to represent those who are afraid to mix with others.
Wallflowers at Rosslyn Castle. Image: Chris Jeffree.
Wallflower, Erysimum cheiri, is a member of the cabbage and mustard Family, the Brassicaceae. Brassicas have four petals arranged in a cross, hence the older family name Cruciferae (“cross-bearing”). The flowers are highly fragrant, attracting large flying insects (bees and bumblebees). Their leaves taste peppery and Erysimum is no exception. Wallflowers are evergreen perennials with narrow leaves, growing 10-50 cm tall. After a couple of years, they grow ‘leggy’ with woody stems and gardeners often replace them after their first-flowering. They grow best in full sun and well-drained, alkaline soil. They have tough but branched tap-roots, which help them to hold on to the mortar of old walls.
Wallflower with seed pods (pods are 2.5 – 7 cm long and 2.4 mm wide). Image: Chris Jeffree.
As in many species, each flower is hermaphroditic i.e. has both stamens and stigmata within the same flower. When visited by a pollinating insect the pollen of that individual plant will often be transferred to its own stigmata. Such ‘selfing’ exposes harmful recessive mutations causing ‘inbreeding depression’. Charles Darwin did some remarkable experiments to show this in cabbage (Darwin 1876). Evolution has found several ways to avoid ‘selfing’: modern research has demonstrated the molecular basis of a self-incompatibility mechanism in the Brassicaceae (Watanabe et al. 2012). Thus, a single wallflower plant is unlikely to produce fertile seed; two or more plants are required.
The fruit is a siliqua, a long narrow pod 2.5 – 7 cm long and 2.4 mm wide. Siliquae become dry when the seeds are ripe, splitting down the middle, releasing seeds and leaving the central membrane behind (note: siliqua was also a Roman coin 4-5 Century AD, possibly evidence of a Roman origin?).
Wallflowers at Lindesrfarne.Northumberland coast. Image: Chris Jeffree.
When appearing in the wild, it is usual to consider the plant to be a ‘garden escape’. It may of course have been a wild plant first if the story of William the Conqueror is true. We do see it on castle walls: the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, Tantallon and Waughton are amongst its homes, but there are many other sightings in towns and cities – including roadsides, rubbish tips and cemeteries. It must have some degree of salt tolerance – the plant is seen at Milsey Bay in North Berwick and on various cliffs around the coast. It can sometimes be considered invasive: I have read “… known to have caused the localized extinction of rare species, such as Silene nutans on magnesian limestone cliffs in Knaresborough, Mid-west Yorkshire”.
Wallflowers at a road safety barrier, Granton (North Edinburgh). Image: Chris Jeffree.
Wallflower is a medicinal plant from the earliest times. Gerard’s Herbal of 1597 had this to say:
A. Dioscorides writeth that the yellow Wallflower is most used in physic, and more than the rest of Stock-Gillyflowers, whereof this is holden to be a kind: which hath moved me to prefer it unto the first place. He saith, that the juice mixed with some unctious or oily thing, and boiled to the form of a liniment, helpeth the chops or rifts of the fundament.
B. The herb boiled with white wine, honey, and a little alum, doth cure hot ulcers, and cankers of the mouth.
C. The leaves stamped with a little bay salt, and bound about the wrists of the hands, taketh away the shaking fits of the ague.
D. A decoction of the flowers together with the leaves, is used with good success to mollify scirrhus tumors.
E. The oil also made with these is good to be used to anoint a paralytic, as also a gouty part to mitigate pain.
F. Also a strong decoction of the flowers drunk, moveth the courses, and expelleth the dead child.
Wallflower is still used for medicine in some parts of the world. Mosleh et al. (2019) describe it as being a common medicinal plant in Persian medicine and also used in India. Mosleh and Azadi (2021) report on the chemical composition of wallflower oil. The oil appears to be a popular component of bathroom fragrances, available in sachets for use in electrically operated wall-mounted diffusion devices.
The BSBI database has many records of wallflower growing wild. The distribution in Scotland and Ireland is predominantly lowland and eastern. In Scotland the distribution relates to human habitation; in Ireland the high concentration around the town of Wexford (population 21,524) but not Dublin (592,713) and Belfast (352,390) is harder to explain.
Distribution of Erysimum cheiri in Britain and Ireland, from BSBI Maps.
References consulted
Ashley, Leonard RN. (1974) Uncommon Naines for Common Plants: The Onomastics of Native and Wild Plants of the British Isles. Names 22.3, 111-128.
Darwin, C. (1876) The Effects of Cross- and Self-fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom. John Murray, London, pp. 1–482. Available online.
Ladbury, E. J. (1924) Scraps of English Folklore, VIII. Worcestershire. Folklore 35, 262-270.
Mosleh G et al. (2019) Wallflower (Erysimum cheiri (L.) Crantz) from past to future. Research Journal of Pharmacognosy 6, 85-95.
Mosleh G. and Azadi A (2021) Characterization and chromatographic fingerprint analysis of traditional wallflower oil. Research Journal of Pharmacognosy, 8, 31-36.
Rich TCG (1991) Crucifers of Great Britain and Ireland. BSBI Handbook 6.
Watanabe M et al. (2012) Molecular genetics, physiology and biology of self-incompatibility in Brassicaceae. Proceeding of the Japanese Academy Series B., 88, 519-35.
©John Grace
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