WATER-CRESS. 



Nasturtium ojficinale. Nat. Ord., 

 L't'itcifercc. 



T will doubtless be conceded that 

 whatever degree, more or less, 

 of acquaintance which some of 

 our readers may have had with 

 certain of our plants, we have at 

 length, as in the case of the 

 daisy and the dandelion, all 

 reached a common meeting-- 

 ground, a plant that is familiar 

 to every one. All our readers, 

 urban as well as rural, will 

 have made acquaintance with 

 the water-cress, though only 

 the latter will have seen it, as 

 we have figured it, in the 

 flowering state. The plant is 

 not so desirable as an esculent 

 during the tiowering-season, and it is naturally the aim of 

 the water-cress grower to cultivate large masses of foliage 

 rather than to allow free flowering. Hence the townsman 

 has no opportunity, so long as he keeps within sight of 

 the paving-stones, of seeing the plant as we have figured it. 

 The root of the plant is long and creeping, composed 

 of numerous tufts of slender white fibres. It is very 



