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noun

Nasturtium n.

(Bot.) A genus of cruciferous plants, having white or yellowish flowers, including several species of cress. They are found chiefly in wet or damp grounds, and have a pungent biting taste.

(Bot.) Any plant of the genus Tropaeolum, geraniaceous herbs, having mostly climbing stems, peltate leaves, and spurred flowers, and including the common Indian cress (Tropaeolum majus), the canary-bird flower (Tropaeolum peregrinum), and about thirty more species, all natives of South America. The whole plant has a warm pungent flavor, and the fleshy fruits are used as a substitute for capers, while the leaves and flowers are sometimes used in salads.

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Etymology of 'Nasturtium'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Nasturtium" Quotes from Famous Books

... corner, sharp upon the water, the east-winds broke about a little yellow house, where no children played; an old man's face watched at a window, and a nasturtium-vine crawled in the garden. The broken panes of glass about the place were well mended, and a clever little gate, extemporized from a wild grape-vine, swung at the entrance. It was not ...

— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... that it not always appreciated at first, but which one soon becomes very partial to. It more nearly resembles the flavour of a rock melon than that of any other fruit, and the seeds, which are found clustered in the centre of the fruit, have a flavour that closely resembles that of seeds of the nasturtium. Both the seeds and the fruit contain an active principle called papain, which is really a vegetable pepsin, that has the effect of greatly assisting in the assimilation of all food with which it is eaten, hence it is a valuable remedy in the case ...

— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson

... confessed that a tear or two dimmed the blue eyes, and once, when a very brilliant display illuminated the island for a moment, and she fancied she saw the tents, the curly head went down on the railing, and a wide-awake nasturtium heard ...

— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... and thence out into the hold of a waiting ship. Then there were the fortresses and gun emplacements and covered ways in which one's soldiers went. And there was commerce; the shops and markets and store-rooms full of nasturtium seed, thrift seed, lupin beans and suchlike provender from the garden; such stuff one stored in match-boxes and pill-boxes, or packed in sacks of old glove fingers tied up with thread and sent off by waggons along ...

— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded, Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose: 'That wild, roving Bee, who was hanging about her Has jilted her ...

— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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