STOCK, or STOCK GILLYFLOWER, Nataliela, a genus of plants of the natural order cruciferaf, haVing cylindrical or compressed pods, and a stigrria consisting of two upright appressed plates, the outer side of which often rises ink a knob or horn. The species are herbaceous 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 ra cemes, and generally beautiful and fragrant. Some of the species have long been much much cultivated, and many fine varieties have been produced by cultivation. _Y. butane, a very rare and even doubtful native of England, is prohably the parent of the greater number of the cultivated kinds with known as Brompton stock, etc.; while those with smooth .leaves, called ten-week stock, German stock, etc., are referred to AL annua, M &bra, and IL fenestralis, which, perhaps, are mere varieties of one species. The sandy shores of Wales and of Cornwall produces 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 gard uers 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 flow ering till the second year, and produce richer racemes of flowers. The smooth-leaved stocks are treated as annuals.—The beautiful little annual culled Virginian stock does not helong to this genuS, although it is of the same natural order. Its habit is indeed very different. It is lialcomia maritima, and notwithstanding its popular name, is a 'native of the shores of the Mediterranean. It has become one of our most favorite flowers. almost rivaling mignonette, and is all the more esteemed because it grows well in the'little garden plots which are exposed to the smoke of towns.