Wildflowers in the chateau walls
It’s now coming to the end of January and twilight outside despite being only 4pm! Now is the perfect time for me to look back over highlights of recent trips. The mini break that really sticks in my mind from last year was taking the campervan to Normandy. I’ve already written about the orchids we saw there, but there were many more wildflowers and these are just a few.

All the photos on this page are of flowers spotted in and around Chateau Gaillard near Les Andelys. Chateau Gaillard is a medieval castle built strategically overlooking the river Seine. It’s built on chalk cliffs, so is a home from home for me: chalk grassland wildflowers everywhere!

The pinks
My main takeaway from my visit to the chateau were the pinks – they were clearly some kind of Dianthus but which I don’t know! The way they were growing on steep battlements in a chalky part of the country immediately made me think of Cheddar Pinks. Apparently Dianthus gratianopolitanus does grow in France as does Dianthus deltoides but to be honest I didn’t have much luck identifying it and a google search didn’t reveal much! Carnations and pinks aren’t something I’ve spent any time on up until now.




Dianthus species
I did find mention of these pinks in a Victorian book however! The book is The Carnation Manual by the National Carnation and Picotee Society of Great Britain published in 1892.
Page 39
The hardiness of the flower is proved by the natural habitats of the plant, which is found in rocky regions in many countries of Europe, and may be seen on Rochester Castle, and at Chateau Gaillard, in Normandy. In my experience it never suffers from cold.
Page 129 & 130
In itself the wild Carnation of Normandy is not very splendid, but its wild habitats, and the peculiar manner in which it haunts old ruins, may teach us a lesson as to Carnation-culture. Wild on lime-stone rocks and banks, it is likewise most abundant on the old keep or donjon tower of the Chateau Gaillard, an eyrie high up over the Seine, above the greater and lesser towns of Les Andelys, where Nicholas Poussin was born.
Here, high up among the flinty masonry, the plant forms great clusters, and its seedlings grow in every crack and fissure and chink of the great walls. I did not see it in flower, but the clusters of seed-vessels rustling aloft in the warm breeze of an April day told the tale, and most assuredly bespoke a profusion of its single rosy flowers during the months of June or July of the preceding year.
As I crept out at a great port-hole to see the plant at closer quarters, I could not help comparing the natural tastes of this plant with the culture it generally receives in most gardens. There was no eel-worm, nor rust-fungus, nor any signs of “damping-off” here, but every plant was fresh and sturdy, and of the healthiest colour imaginable, albeit scorched by a hotter summer’s sun than ours, and buffeted during winter by every gale that blows.
Then there is another point of difference worth remarking here, viz., that in most gardens Carna-
tions are planted at a much lower level than the eye, and are staked up carefully so as to be seen;
but as seen wild, or as naturalised on rocks or old walls, the plant is often indeed generally above
one’s eyes, and the masses of its blossoms hang downwards, and so do not suffer from too much
rain, nor are they so liable to be spoiled by the earwigs as are our border-grown flowers.
More wildflowers around the Chateau
Some of these are flowers I haven’t seen in the wild before.
Broomrape – Orobanche

Wild Campanulas


Common verbena – Verbena officinalis

Perennial yellow woundwort – Stachys recta
This one is new to me!

Yellow foxglove – Digitalis lutea
I know this as a garden flower but have never seen it in the wild.

Large yellow restharrow – Ononis natrix
My first yellow Restharrow.

Campion – Silene
It would be tempting to assign this as a White Campion but it doesn’t look quite right to me. But it doesn’t look like a Catchfly either.

More wildflowers spotted
In the above pictures you can see even more wildflowers than are mentioned here:
- Mignonette
- Viper’s bugloss
- Ragwort
- Mullein
- Euphorbia
- Thistle
- Bramble
- Eryngium
- Red clover
- Stonecrop
- Kidney vetch
- Greater knapweed
- Pyramidal orchid
- Butterfly orchid
- Lizard orchid (nearby)
Help welcomed!
If anyone has thoughts about the identification of any of these species, do please comment below! I would welcome thoughts on the Pinks, but you can also see that I haven’t fully identified other blooms on this page.