Home & People

Press, 29 August 1980, Page 5

Home & People

Don’t believe a word of it. Nasturtiums are not just pretty faces, though. Their large seeds ripen into tough, corky things. But if picked when immature — when they are just forming, say a fortnight after the flowers drop off — they can be pickled, and will make a very acceptable substitute for capers. The name, “nasturtium,” is misleading, though, because the only plants entitled to wear it are the water-cresses. The common water-cress is known bofanically as Nasturtium officinale, and there ’ are about. 50 other species; they belong to the cabbage family, and are found throughout the temperate zones. The garden “nasturtiums,” including “Golden Gleam,” are in a family of their own, Tropaelaceae, in which their genus, tropaeolum, is the only one. There are about 50 species. All are from Central and South America. • It is not clear how the transference of name came about-.' “Tropaeolum” is from the Greek word for trophy, or shield; the annual species have peltate, i.e. shield-shaped, leaves. “Nasturtium” is dog-bot-anical Latin for “twisting the nose,” and is quite a well chosen name, because the water-cresses as a family are inclined to pungency.

Long before any Euro-, peans grew - them, the

Amerindians were using the young seeds, and the flower buds, of various tropaeolum species in pickles and sauces, or their equivalent of pickles and sauces, and when these plants first came to cultivation in Europe they were ‘ called “Indian Cress.” Perhaps the switch happened then. Most gardeners . recognise only the annual "nasturtiums.” Sophisticated ones know that some of the perennial species are much more interesting. One of them, the “Scotch creeper,” Tropaeolum speciosum, which has. flaming vermilion flowers, is naturalised in parts of the country. . Admittedly the perennial kinds are harder to grow. T. speciosum has resisted all my efforts to establish it, though not two miles away, in what was once the site ,of a gatekeeper’s lodge, a Scotch creeper grows wild over nearly quarter of an acre of scrub and old trees. Usually, it is a cbol-climate plant; it thrives in Eastern Southland. Unless one could buy a plant (and I have never seen it offered) the only way to establish it in a garden might be by sowing fresh seed. Roots are almost impossible to transplant.

The rhizomes are long, white, thin and snake-like,

and you would have to dig over quite a wide area to make sure of getting one intact. Once broken, they often just rot away. If they are established successfully, they are. likely to get cock-a-hoop about it, run everywhere, and

become an ineradicable weed. Tropaeolum polyphyllum is more seemly. This is not so much a climber as a small flopper. It likes to trail over rocks, and it is recommended for rock-gar-den use. But the rock gar-

den would have to be a large one, because the trailers, studded with grey-green leaves, are more than a metre long. The flowers, held well above the foliage, are a warm, ochreous yellow, a unique shade, and appear in early summer. Both these species are hardy. T. tuberosum, which is even prettier, is less hardy, and my small tuber has gradually dwindled away in the frosts. Once it gets going, in a warm, sunny place, it climbs vigorously throughout summer.

The flowers, which are orange marked with scarlet. or the other way ' round, appear in autumn and once they have faded the plant wastes no time ■- in retiring to hibernation. The dormant roots look just like potatoes.

Another worth-while, climbing species is T. peltophorum. also known as T. lobbianum. This is the old-fashioned “climbing nasturtium.” It is an annual, but hairy stems and’ long “claws” on the lower petals of the orange-red' flowers segregate it from' the other annual species.

New Zealand seedsmen' do not list it any longer, but it probably still comes up, year after year, in a few old gardens. I imported some seed last year, from an English source,: but nothing came of it.