Localities. — In springs, brooks, rivulets, ponds, and watery ditches ; common. 
Perennial. — Flowers in June and July. 
Root of many long, simple, whitish fibres, the lowermost fixed 
in the soil, the rest suspended in the water. Stems many, spread- 
ing, usually creeping at the base, from 1 to 2 feet high, angular, 
branched, leafy, mostly smooth, but occasionally, when growing out 
of the water, a little hairy. Leaves alternate, smooth, deep shining 
green, sometimes tinged with dark purplish-brown, pinnate (winged) , 
of 5 or 7, roundish, wavy leaflets, the terminal one the largest. 
Stipulas none. Flowers in a flattish corymb, which soon lengthens 
out into a raceme. Calyx purplish. Corolla small, white, or 
slightly purple. Pods about an inch long, tumid and undulated at 
the sides, smooth, curved upwards, each on an horizontal stalk, 
variable in length. 
There are 2 or 3 varieties of this plant, but they are of little consequence. 
AVater-cress is a native in livulets throughout the world. It is universally 
used as an early and wholesome Spring salad, either alone or with brook-lime 
or scurvy-grass ; and is eaten fasting, or with bread and butter, by those who 
Wave faith in its antiscorbutic viitues. The juice, decocted with that of scurvy- 
grass and Seville oranges, foims the popular remedy called Spring Juices. In 
Prance it is not only used as salad, but dressed like spinach, and the picked 
leaves served with roasted fowl compose the favourite Poulet au cressons. Of 
late it has been cultivated on many acres of land in the vicinity of London, 
whence the markets are supplied daily throughout the year; but Water-cress 
grown in this way is far inferior to that grown in natural streams.! In the latter 
stale it is gathered by the peasantry in the neighbourhood of large towns, where 
the sale of it forms an important though humble branch of domestic commerce. 
THE WATER-CRESS GIRL. 
“ She leaves her bed while yet the dew 
Is sparkling on the flower ; 
And ere Aurora’s golden hue 
Hath tinged the old church tower — 
Ere yet the matin bell hath toll’d. 
Ere yet the flock hath left the fold. 
Or the blithe lark his bower — 
Before the shadowy mountain mist 
By the first sun-beam hath been kiss’d. 
Her way is o’er the dewy meads. 
And by the violet dell. 
To where a plank her footsteps leads, 
By the old haunted well ; 
And then she steps from stone to stone, 
In the brook’s gurgling waters throne. 
To where the cresses dwell ; 
And many a lily decks the scene, 
Of which she looks the fairy queen ! 
Ah, little need she blush to see 
The wave give back her face : 
And her dark tresses wand’ring free 
In all their native grace. 
No worm bath marr’d her cheek’s young bloom. 
No mark of care’s depressing gloom 
Upon her brow hath place ; 
For love — false love, — hath never yet 
llis seal upon her young heart set.” 
From “ The Diamond.” 
