Gillyflower

Gillyflower, a popular English name for some of the cruciferous plants most prized for the beauty and fragrance of their flowers, as wallflower in the west of England, stocks in other parts, &c.; also for Hesperis matronalis, Dame's Violet (q.v.). The clove-pink also, the wild original of the carnation, is called Clove-Gillyflower. The name gillyflower has been regarded as a corruption of July-flower; but in Chaucer it appears in the form gilofre; and the French giroflée indicates the true derivation from girofle, a clove, the smell of the clove-gillyflower being somewhat like that of cloves.