Nasturtium… the “Indian Cress”
Whenever I come across a display of glorious plants in the gardens I visit, my curiosity is usually piqued enough so that on my return I have to immediately refer to what I have long considered to be essential guide books for plants, the 5-volume set “Familiar Garden Flowers” by F. Edward Hulme, published by Cassell & Company in 1907, a year after the companion 7-volume set of “Familiar Wild Flowers” by the same author.
I found both sets on a trader’s bookstall in the small market town of Devizes in Wiltshire some forty years ago, and they have been an invaluable reference, as well as a delight to read, ever since. The ‘garden’ plants volumes will eventually go to my eldest daughter living near Denver, CO, who is a wonderful market gardener despite the semi-desert climatic conditions of the region; whilst the ‘wild’ set will find its way to a small island between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland where my youngest daughter is surrounded more by a wet wilderness.
Latin names are universal
However, I looked in both volume’s indices for Nasturtium and on finding no reference thought the plant was possibly a more modern introduction or hybrid. Silly me… when in doubt always look up the Latin name… and there Nasturtium was, under Tropaeolum majus, but…
