The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Gillyflower

GILLYFLOWER, a popular English name for some of the cruciferous plants most prized for the beauty and fragrance of their flowers, as the wallflowers and stocks; also for Hesperis matronalis, dame's rocket or dame's violet (q.v.). 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, or clove-pink, having suggested the name of that flower.