WATER-CRESS (Nasturtium officinale), an aquatic salad plant of the family Cruciferae, native to Europe and Asia, com mon in Great Britain, widely naturalized in the United States and Canada and introduced also into the West Indies and South Amer ica. It is a creeping or floating perennial, rooting in clear, cold water, with leaves composed of few to several small rounded leaf lets and elongated clusters of small white flowers. Its slightly
pungent flavour is due to an oil containing sulphur. Water-cress is cultivated for the market in shallow ditches, prepared in wet, low-lying meadows, provision being made for flooding at will.