Siberian Wallflower
Erysimum x allionii cv.
A spring flowering biennial or short-lived perennial with showy, terminal clusters of bright orange-yellow flowers; deliciously fragrant, the Siberian Wallflower is among the oldest garden plants in European cultivation.
This ancient garden wallflower has been in cultivation for so long that its origin is uncertain. While serving as president, Thomas Jefferson sent his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph a "bundle of Wallflowers,"1 and he ordered wallflower seed from Philadelphia nurseryman Bernard McMahon in 1807.2
Wallflowers are divided into two genera, Cheiranthus and Erysimum, and there is much debate as to the differences between the two. The name Cheiranthus derives from the Latin for "hand flower," referring to this fragrant flower's use in nosegays and tussie mussies. Wallflowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
- Peggy Cornett, n.d.
Further Sources
- Bailey, L.H. Hortus Third: A Concise Dictionary of Plants Cultivated in the United States and Canada. New York: Macmillan, 1976.
- Stuart, David and James Sutherland. Plants from the Past: Old Flowers for New Gardens. Harmondsworth: Viking, 1987.
- Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants.
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Heirloom Seeds and Plants from the Monticello collection
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Footnotes
- Jefferson to Martha Jefferson Randolph, November 21, 1806, Pierpont Morgan Library. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- Jefferson to McMahon, January 6, 1807, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Transcription available at Founders Online. See also Edwin M. Betts, Hazlehurst Bolton Perkins, and Peter J. Hatch, Thomas Jefferson's Flower Garden at Monticello, 3rd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 56.