Nasturtium Meaning: Patriotism, a ‘Warlike Trophy’ and the Battle Spoils Linnaeus Saw in Its Leaves and Flowers
Nasturtium meaning: patriotism and “warlike trophy” in Victorian flower dictionaries, a trophy name from Linnaeus, and a peppery edible flower at Giverny.
In short
- Nasturtium meaning: patriotism in Greenaway’s 1884 flower dictionary, and “warlike trophy” for its other name, Indian cress.
- Tropaeolum, the genus name, comes from the Greek tropaion, “trophy”: round leaves as shields, flowers as helmets.
- No Victorian dictionary we checked gives it “victory”; Greenaway gives that to the palm.
- Checked against: Greenaway, Flora’s Pocket Dictionary, New York Botanical Garden, Flora of North America, Fondation Claude Monet.
The nasturtium means patriotism and a “warlike trophy” in Victorian flower dictionaries, and its botanical name, Tropaeolum, means “trophy”. The garden nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus), also called Indian cress, is a South American plant whose arrival in Europe is dated anywhere from the 1500s to 1684, depending on the source. Kate Greenaway’s 1884 Language of Flowers lists “Nasturtium: Patriotism” and “Indian Cress: Warlike trophy”. Carl Linnaeus named the genus in 1753, and the New York Botanical Garden says he thought its flowers and round leaves looked like a battlefield trophy made of “the shields and bloodied helmets of the defeated enemy”. At Giverny, the Fondation Claude Monet says nasturtiums gradually take over the central path each summer. Modern lists add “victory” and “conquest”. The Victorian books say something narrower, and this guide keeps the two apart.
This page is part of our flower symbolism and meaning guide. Where sources disagree, such as on how the plant got its name or when it reached Europe, the disagreement is shown rather than smoothed over.
What does the nasturtium mean?
The nasturtium means different things in different traditions, and each meaning rests on a different kind of evidence.
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| Tradition | What it says | What it rests on |
|---|---|---|
| Victorian flower dictionaries (1870–1884) | Nasturtium: patriotism. Indian cress: warlike trophy | Printed entries in Greenaway, Flora’s Pocket Dictionary and a New York dictionary of 1884 |
| Linnaeus’s botanical name (1753) | Tropaeolum, “trophy”: leaves read as shields, flowers as helmets | New York Botanical Garden, Folkard’s Plant Lore (1884), Flora of North America |
| Andean origin | Used by the Incas as a salad vegetable and a medicinal herb | Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum horticulturist, Go Botany, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine |
| Modern meaning lists | Conquest, victory in battle, patriotism; colour meanings such as courage for red | Florist and author pages that name no earlier book |
| Museum tradition | Freedom, strength and independence | One museum blog post, with no source given |
Patriotism and “warlike trophy” appear in three Victorian books. Victory and conquest appear only in modern lists.
What do the Victorian flower dictionaries say about the nasturtium?
Three of the four Victorian flower dictionaries we read list the nasturtium as patriotism, and the same three give “warlike trophy” to Indian cress.
| Book | Nasturtium | Indian cress |
|---|---|---|
| Greenaway, Language of Flowers (Routledge, 1884) | Patriotism | Warlike trophy |
| Flora’s Pocket Dictionary (Porter & Coates, 1870) | Patriotism. Warlike trophy | Éclat. Warlike trophy. Resignation |
| The Language of Flowers, including Floral Poetry (Worthington, New York, 1884) | Patriotism | Warlike trophy |
| Tyas, The Language of Flowers (Routledge, 1869) | No entry found | No entry found |
Victory is a different flower in these books. Greenaway’s list gives victory to the palm, and Flora’s index gives it to the palm and the laurel. Neither the nasturtium nor Indian cress appears under victory in either book. “Conquest” and “victory” turn up for the nasturtium only in modern lists, such as one author’s floriography page, which has “victory in battle”, and an Australian florist’s flower-of-the-day post, and neither names a book. The older “warlike trophy” may be where those lists got the idea, but no source we read says so.
None of the three entries explains why a garden flower stands for love of country. The “warlike trophy” wording matches the plant’s Latin name, which means trophy, and Greenaway, Flora’s and the New York book all print it. We found no Victorian text that links the two, so treat the connection as a reading, not a documented fact.
A small oddity sits in two of the books. Greenaway’s list has an entry for “Austurtium: Splendour” among its A flowers, and Flora’s index puts “Austurtium” and “Scarlet Nasturtium” together under splendor. The spelling looks like a misprint for nasturtium. If it is, the plant carried a second Victorian meaning, splendour, though we read only transcriptions of the pages and cannot confirm the misprint.
Tyas, whose 1869 book is the earliest of the four, has no entry for the nasturtium, Indian cress or Tropaeolum in the text we searched. Our cornflower meaning guide checks the same four books flower by flower and finds all four giving the cornflower delicacy.
Why is the genus called Tropaeolum, “trophy”?
Tropaeolum comes from tropaion, the Greek word for trophy, and Linnaeus chose it because the plant reminded him of a battlefield trophy.
The New York Botanical Garden’s research guide says Linnaeus “thought its flowers and round leaves looked like a classical battlefield trophy made up of the shields and bloodied helmets of the defeated enemy”. Linnaeus published the genus in Species Plantarum in 1753 (page 345) and again in Genera Plantarum in 1754, according to Flora of North America. That treatment counts about 90 species in the genus, from Mexico through Central and South America.
Sources describe the helmet differently. Folkard’s 1884 Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics says the “shield-like form” of the leaves and the flowers, “which resemble golden helmets”, gave the plant its Latin name “Tropeolum” (trophy). The New York Botanical Garden says bloodied. Both read the flower as a helmet and the leaf as a shield, and neither gives a page in Linnaeus’s own writing for the comparison.
The shield part is easy to see on the plant. The leaf blade of T. majus is round, 3 to 10 cm across, with about nine veins radiating from the leaf stalk. The flower is 2.5 to 6 cm across with a spur at the back. Those measurements come from the Flora of North America treatment of the species, which also records petal colours of yellow, orange, purple, maroon and creamy white.
Folkard adds an older story. He writes that, according to the Jesuit poet Rapin, the nasturtium was once a young Trojan huntsman, though Rapin “gives no details of the metamorphosis”. That is classical-style folklore from a Latin poem, not a botanical record, and no other source we found repeats it.
Why is a nasturtium called a “nose-twister”?
The word nasturtium was the Latin name for cress long before it was the name of this flower, and ancient writers read it as “nose-twisting”.
Pascal Tréguer’s word-history article explains that in antiquity the Latin word was interpreted as nasus, “nose”, plus tortus, “twisted”. He quotes Pliny the Elder, who wrote that cress, in Tréguer’s translation, “has got its Latin name from the pain that it gives to the nostrils”, and Isidore of Seville, who wrote that it is named for its savour, “because its bitterness wrenches one’s nose”. These are ancient readings of the word, and Tréguer presents them as the interpretation of the time.
The name moved to this plant by taste. William Curtis wrote in The Botanical Magazine that the flowers taste of watercress with a degree of sweetness, that they are sometimes used in salads, “and hence the plant acquires its name of Nasturtium”. The nickname survived into modern plant references: the ASPCA lists Nose-Twister and Nose-Tweaker as common names, and the NC State Extension Plant Toolbox lists both too.
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→ View My Garden CalendarThis gives the plant two names with two different stories. Tropaeolum is about shape and war. Nasturtium is about taste. The Victorian dictionaries use the war vocabulary. The taste story sits behind the plant’s use in salads.
Where does the nasturtium come from?
The nasturtium comes from the Andes of South America, and the garden form is a cultivated plant that is likely of hybrid origin.
That description is from Go Botany, the Native Plant Trust’s plant guide. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine says it is “a native of Peru”, and that Linnaeus said it was first brought into Europe in 1684. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s horticulturist writes that its natural habitat is the montane forests of the Andes, and that the Incas of Peru used it as a salad vegetable and a medicinal herb, with wild plants made into tea for respiratory infections and a poultice for cuts and burns.
The European dates do not line up neatly, and the museum’s account helps explain why. It says the Spanish botanist Nicolás Monardes documented the plant in 1565, that John Gerard noted it in England in 1597 under the name Indian cress, and that the first nasturtium to reach Europe was the smaller Tropaeolum minus. The larger T. majus, it says, arrived in the 1600s and became a favourite after it appeared in the flower beds of Louis XIV at Versailles. Read together, that is consistent with Linnaeus’s 1684 date applying to T. majus, though no source we found says that outright. The same museum page also says the plant was brought by Spanish conquistadors “around 1500”, a date it does not source and which sits earlier than its own 1565 first record.
The name Indian cress has two explanations. The museum says it comes from the Americas, then known as the Indies. Flora of North America says the name “refers to its cultivation in India”. We did not find a primary source for either.
A relative shows how much the Andean story is about food. Flora of North America notes that Tropaeolum tuberosum is the source of the root crop añu, an important staple in the Andes.
Did Linnaeus’s daughter see nasturtiums flash?
Linnaeus’s daughter Elisabeth Christina reported in 1762 that nasturtium flowers appeared to flash at dusk.
The New York Botanical Garden’s PlantTalk article says she was 19 in 1762 when the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences published her account of seeing flashes of light from the family’s nasturtiums at Hammarby, a farm near Uppsala. The effect became known as the Elizabeth Linnaeus Phenomenon. Some people thought it came from phosphorescence or electricity, and a German professor argued in 1914 that it is optical, a result of the way our eyes perceive the flowers’ colours in twilight. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine repeats the version in which the sparks looked like electricity and were visible only in the evening dusk. Folkard says Linnaeus recorded that his daughter made the observation.
What do nasturtiums have to do with Monet’s garden at Giverny?
Nasturtiums are one of the signature plants of Claude Monet’s central path at Giverny, where the Fondation Claude Monet says they gradually take over the path during summer.
The Fondation’s page on the Clos Normand, the flower garden beside the house, says Monet had the spruce trees cut down and replaced by metal arches, which still stand. It adds that the central path “is lined with fragrant roses and nasturtiums”. Monet lived at Giverny from 1883 to 1926.
The Fondation’s own nasturtium page gives the practical detail. The flowers come in orange, red or yellow, and “herald the autumn”. The Lobb nasturtiums start climbing along the central path and completely restyle the garden’s main view. The gardeners sow groups of five seeds in pots in a greenhouse in early April, harden them off, and plant them out around 15 May, after the risk of frost has passed. The page also says Monet paid homage to cut nasturtiums in two paintings, Nasturtiums in a Blue Vase and Vase of Nasturtiums. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum states that Monet “grew nasturtiums annually along the walk of his gardens at Giverny”.
None of these pages says why Monet chose the plant, or connects it to patriotism or battle. The Fondation describes the nasturtium as colour and as a sign of the season. The planting dates above describe the gardeners’ practice today, not a record of what Monet’s staff did in his lifetime.
Can you eat nasturtiums?
Yes. Nasturtium leaves and flowers are eaten, as are the flower buds and immature seed pods, and the taste is peppery.
The University of Illinois Extension says the taste is similar to watercress, that young leaves are the most tender and flavourful, and that the buds and immature seed pods have been likened to capers when pickled. It suggests the leaves in green salads, potato salads, egg and seafood dishes and vinegars, and the flowers as edible decoration. Its growing tip: keep plants well watered, because that moderates the spiciness, while heat-stressed plants often produce leaves and flowers that are more pungent than most people prefer.
The UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions page adds timing and a safety rule. Pods develop about four months after seeding, and anyone eating the plant should avoid pesticides on or near it. The Flora of North America says the foliage is rich in vitamin C and names benzyl isothiocyanate, a compound that can cause irritation.
The eating tradition is old. The Gardner Museum says Thomas Jefferson recorded planting nasturtiums in 1774 and pickled the seeds and buds like capers, and that during World War II the pungent seeds were ground up as a substitute for black pepper. Curtis’s description in The Botanical Magazine already says the flowers were sometimes used in salads.
For pets, the ASPCA lists Tropaeolum majus as non-toxic to dogs, cats and horses and records no toxic ingestion from the plant.
Does the colour of a nasturtium change its meaning?
Hardly, in the Victorian books we read, and colour meanings appear mainly in modern lists.
The one colour-specific entry we found is in Flora’s Pocket Dictionary, which lists “Scarlet Nasturtium” separately under splendor, while Greenaway, the New York book and Tyas give no colour meaning for the plant. Modern lists go further. The author page cited above says a red nasturtium means courage, strength or passion and a yellow one merriment, gaiety and joy, without naming a book. The plant itself comes in yellow, orange, purple, maroon and creamy white according to Flora of North America, and the Fondation lists orange, red and yellow for the plants it grows. Treat colour meanings as modern convention, not as the inherited language of flowers.
From meaning to growing: where to go next
If the meaning has you wanting a patch of your own, the extension advice is short. The University of Illinois says nasturtium prefers full sun and tolerates some light shade, though flowering may be reduced, and that it does not transplant well, so direct sowing after the last frost is suggested. Giverny’s gardeners instead start seed in pots under glass and plant out after frost.
Our guide to growing nasturtiums from seed covers why rich soil can cost you flowers, trailing varieties and edible flowers. Our guide to flowers for companion planting places the nasturtium among four companion flowers, and our list of orange flowers for the garden is a place to look for neighbours for orange nasturtiums.
Frequently asked questions
What does a nasturtium symbolize?
In Victorian flower dictionaries the nasturtium symbolizes patriotism, and its other name, Indian cress, is listed as a “warlike trophy”. Modern lists add victory and conquest, and a museum blog post says it has symbolized freedom, strength and independence, without giving a source.
What does a nasturtium mean in the language of flowers?
Greenaway’s 1884 book, Flora’s Pocket Dictionary of 1870 and a New York dictionary of 1884 all list the nasturtium as patriotism. Tyas’s 1869 book has no entry for it.
Why is the nasturtium called Tropaeolum?
Tropaeolum comes from the Greek tropaion, “trophy”. The New York Botanical Garden says Linnaeus thought the flowers and round leaves looked like a battlefield trophy of shields and bloodied helmets, and Linnaeus published the name in 1753.
What does the word nasturtium mean?
Nasturtium was the Latin name for cress, which ancient writers read as “nose-twisting”. William Curtis wrote in The Botanical Magazine that the plant acquired the name because its flowers taste of watercress.
Where does the nasturtium come from?
The nasturtium comes from the Andes of South America. Go Botany describes the garden plant as cultivated and likely of hybrid origin, and Curtis’s Botanical Magazine calls it a native of Peru.
Are nasturtiums edible?
Yes. Leaves and flowers are eaten, and the buds and immature seed pods have been likened to capers when pickled. University extension sources describe the taste as peppery, similar to watercress, and advise avoiding pesticides on plants you plan to eat.
Are nasturtiums safe for dogs and cats?
The ASPCA lists the nasturtium as non-toxic to dogs, cats and horses, with no records of toxic ingestion from the plant. Flora of North America names benzyl isothiocyanate in the plant as a compound that can cause irritation.
Did Monet grow nasturtiums?
Yes. The Fondation Claude Monet says the central path at Giverny is lined with roses and nasturtiums, that Monet painted cut nasturtiums twice, and that the plants gradually take over the path during summer.
Sources
- Greenaway, K. Language of Flowers. George Routledge and Sons, London, 1884 (Project Gutenberg eBook 31591)
- Flora’s Pocket Dictionary; or, The Language of Flowers. Porter & Coates, Philadelphia, 1870 (Internet Archive)
- The Language of Flowers, including Floral Poetry. Worthington, New York, 1884 (Internet Archive)
- Tyas, R. The Language of Flowers; or, Floral Emblems of Thoughts, Feelings, and Sentiments. Routledge, London, 1869 (Internet Archive)
- Folkard, R. Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics. 1884, entry Nasturtium, p. 459 (Internet Archive)
- New York Botanical Garden. Flower Shapes and How to Use Them in the Garden. Research guide, LuEsther T. Mertz Library
- Flora of North America, vol. 7. Tropaeolum majus Linnaeus (Tropaeolaceae). eFloras
- Flora of North America, vol. 7. Tropaeolum Linnaeus (Tropaeolaceae), genus treatment. eFloras
- Curtis, W. The Botanical Magazine, vol. 1, plate 23: Tropaeolum majus, Greater Indian-Cress, or Nasturtium. Wikisource transcription
- New York Botanical Garden. Flashes in the Twilight. PlantTalk
- Fondation Claude Monet, Giverny. Nasturtium (Giverny’s flowers)
- Fondation Claude Monet, Giverny. Clos Normand
- Pore, J. The Elevation of the Nasturtium: From Plate to Palace Garden. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 29 March 2022
- University of Illinois Extension. Nasturtium (Herbs)
- UF/IFAS Extension. Nasturtiums. Gardening Solutions, University of Florida
- ASPCA. Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus). Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants
- NC State Extension. Tropaeolum majus. Plant Toolbox
- Native Plant Trust. Tropaeolum majus (garden-nasturtium). Go Botany
- Tréguer, P. “To cast nasturtiums”: meaning and origin. Word Histories, 2020
- Lathan, S. Floriography: N, O and P flowers (author website)
- Stem Design. The flower of the day: nasturtiums (Australian florist)
