Medium to tall plant covered with flattened hairs. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, untoothed, the uppermost narrower. Flowers yellow or orange-brown, large 20 to 25 mm, very fragrant.

Various colours: yellow, orange, red, brown and purple. Seed-pods long and erect - i.e folded upwards alongside stem; seed-pods without beak, splitting into 2 valves with usually one row of seeds in each valve.  Hairy; hairs are stellate (i.e. bracnched).  Lower leaves entire, toothed.  Distingushed from hybrid wallflower (E x marshallii) by divergent lobes of stigma and flattened seed-pods.

Check seed-pods and stigmas of orange specimens for E x marshallii

Rocky habitats such as walls and cliffs.

Flowers March to June.

Perennial.

Widespread in England and Wales, more coastal in Scotland.

Occasional on walls in Leicestershire and Rutland, often as an established garden escape. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 23 of the 617 tetrads.