I rescued this plant today. 'Twas an alleyway throwaway, rootbound in never-watered soil in a 4" pot. I think it will be just fine now, although at the moment it looks just terrible. —So: whom have I rescued? I have not the foggiest idea what kind of plant this is. Thank you.
Well, imagine that! A fragrant stock! I followed up on your identification, and, sure enough, that's it. Very nice. It seems all good, no negatives except if I were actually buying one, I'd likely not buy a "double" as this appears to be. However, I simply found this one, cast out beside a dumpster. So I'm happy if it's happy; and apparently we'll have its fragrance to enjoy as well. Thanks very much, Sundrop, for your ID. Appreciated. I think it will overcome its obviously terrible previous treatment. It will just be a setback, but now I am pretty sure our new Matthiola will thrive.
And a fair chance that any seedlings it produces will be single. Quite possible though that the double flowers will have less (or even no) scent than singles do.
I see. I'm glad you mentioned that, as now we won't be wondering where the scent is. Doubles and such "don't impress me much", but I often am very impressed indeed with wild things. I don't need humankind to bring out the colours; I love what I see along a forest trail. I live in a bewildering chaos of human intervention, and so our tiny balcony with its alleyway view is a mixmash of compounded compromise and contradiction. We'll watch and see if our orphaned Matthiola incana is able to revert to a more naturally harmonious form through its progeny. Thanks for that.
