Stock is a cabbage relative that smells of cloves and honey. Florists put it in almost everything and almost nobody asks for it by name.
Stock is a cool-season flower with dense, ruffled blooms crowded along an upright spike, and a warm spiced scent that fills a room. It gives an arrangement height, softness and smell at once, which is why it turns up constantly in spring bouquets without ever being the flower on the label.
What is a stock flower?
Matthiola incana belongs to the Brassicaceae, which makes it a relation of cabbage, broccoli and mustard. That is not a piece of trivia, it is a warning about the water. Brassica stems foul a vase faster than almost anything else, and the smell when they do is unmistakable.
The flowers sit along a vertical spike in tight ruffled clusters. Double-flowered forms, the ones with the crowded rosette look, are what florists want; singles are flatter and read thinner in an arrangement.
It also goes by gillyflower, an old English name you will still see in seed catalogues and poetry.
What does stock mean?
Stock is associated with lasting beauty, contentment and bonds of affection. It is the flower of a settled fondness rather than a grand declaration, which is an unfashionable thing to send and often the more accurate one.
The Victorian reading was a contented existence, which suits a flower whose main gift is that a room smells better while it is there.
Stock colour meanings
- White and cream: sincerity and calm. The most useful in a considered palette.
- Soft pink: affection and warmth without sweetness.
- Deep purple and plum: depth and richness. The most saturated stock available and the most under-used.
- Apricot: the modern florist favourite, and the hardest shade to find.
When is stock in season in Australia?
Stock is a cool-season crop, generally strongest from late winter through spring here, with good supply through September and October. Warmth shortens it.
Availability shifts weekly with the grower and the market, which is why a studio designs to a palette rather than promising a named stem. Our guide to flowers that bloom in spring in Australia sets out what arrives with it.
It is the flower of a settled fondness rather than a grand declaration.
How long does stock last, and how to care for it
Five to ten days, and the range is almost entirely down to one habit: how often you change the water.
How to care for cut stock
- Change the water every day or two. This is the whole game with a brassica. Left alone, the water turns and the stems go with it.
- Recut the base each time you change it, and strip every leaf below the waterline.
- Use a tall vase. The spikes are top-heavy and will lean without support.
- Keep it out of direct sun and away from ripening fruit.
- Buy it with the lower florets open and the tip still in bud. It opens upward from there.
The general rules are in our guide to keeping flowers alive longer.
Is stock toxic to pets?
Matthiola incana is not listed among the plants the ASPCA identifies as toxic to cats and dogs, which puts it in a better position than most of what shares a spring bucket with it. Ranunculus, anemone and delphinium are all harmful if eaten.
That is not a licence to let an animal chew it. Any plant material can upset a stomach, and a mixed bouquet is only as safe as its least safe stem. If you have pets, our note on plants that are toxic to pets is the piece to read before the flowers arrive.
How to use stock well
Stock is a supporting actor and it is very good at the job. It brings vertical line, so an arrangement does not settle into a dome, and it fills the gaps between focal flowers without looking like filler, because the flower head has real substance to it.
It also carries scent into an arrangement that might otherwise have none, which matters more than people expect. A bouquet you can smell from the next room is doing something a photograph cannot. That is why it appears in the spring guide for wedding flowers, and why we reach for it in the seasonal bouquets most weeks it is available. Planning a spring wedding? Our Australian spring wedding flowers guide covers where it fits.
White, textural, built on line rather than bloom count.
Pyrenees works the same way stock does, from $119. Shop Pyrenees →
Sources: ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plants database. Photographs by Suki Lee and Tara Winstead via Pexels.
