Stock

Stock, or STOCK GILLYFLOWER (Matthiola), a genus of plants of the natural order Crucifere, having cylindrical or compressed pods, and a stigma consisting of two upright appressed plates, the outer side of which often rises into a knob or horn. The species are herbaceous, annual or perennial, or half-shrubby, natives of the countries around the Mediterranean Sea, most of them thickly clothed with white or grayish stellate hairs; the flowers in racemes, and generally beautiful and fragrant. Some of the species have long been much cultivated, and many fine varieties have been produced by cultivation. M. incana, a very rare and even doubtful native of England, is probably the parent of the greater number of the cultivated kinds with hoary leaves, known as Brompton Stock, &c.; whilst those with smooth leaves, called Ten-week Stock, German Stock, &c., are referred to M. annua, M. glabra, and M. fenestralis, which, perhaps, are mere varieties of one species. The sandy shores of Wales and of Cornwall produce a species, M. sinuata, the large purple flowers of which are fragrant only at night—a characteristic also of several other species. Stocks are always raised by gardeners from seed, which even the double kinds often produce, a multiplication of the petals having taken place without loss of the parts of fructification. Of the seedlings, however, some produce double and others single flowers, so that only some gratify the cultivator. The hoary-leaved stocks are generally treated as biennials, although, in reality, they may almost be reckoned perennial; and it is not desirable that they should flower in the first year, as the plants become stronger when they remain without flowering till the second year, and produce richer racemes of flowers. The smooth-leaved stocks are treated as annuals. The beautiful little annual called Virginian Stock does not belong to this genus, although it is of the same natural order. Its habit is indeed very different. It is Malcolmia maritima, and, notwithstanding its popular name, is a native of the shores of the Mediterranean. It has become one of the most favourite British flowers, almost rivalling mignonette, and is all the more esteemed because it grows well in the little garden-plots which are exposed to the smoke of towns.