Wallflower

Information on Wallflower

Common Name: Wallflower
Scientific Name: Erysimum cheiri
Irish Name: Lus an bhalla
Family Group: Brassicaceae
Distribution: View Map (Courtesy of the BSBI)
Flowering Period


Click for list of all flowering by month
Wallflower is not easily confused with other wild plants on this web site.


Familiar plant from parks to gardens, the wild version is slightly smaller than its cultivated cousin.  Usually found growing on old walls, dry limestone rocks and embankments, the fragrant, four-petalled flowers are usually yellow but can also be orange, dark red or brown.  The flowers (25mm across) are on display from April to July and the seeds are in long flattened pods. This is a bushy plant which reaches to 60cm high and has narrow, pointed leaves. It is not considered to be a native as it is classed as a garden escape.  It belongs to the family Brassicaceae. 

I first saw this as a wild plant growing on an old ruin in Fethard-on-Sea, Co Wexford in 2005 when I took the photographs. 

If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre

This rhyme was sung by children when they skipped in the school-yard or in their home streets:

'Wallflowers, wallflowers, growing up so high,
We're pretty mermaids and we shall not die.
Except for ***, she's the only one.
Turn her around turn her around so she cannot face the sun'

Then there was the other definition of a Wallflower which many girls going to the Saturday night 'hop' in the 1950's remember only too well! 

Wallflower
Wallflower