PlantFiles: Nasturtium
Tropaeolum majus 'Empress of India'

I like this plant, even the leaves are pretty and it is sooo easy to grow from seed.

Classic Victorian plant with dark blue-green foliage and crimson-scarlet flowers. Plants seldom get over 12-14" and are great for containers. Flowers and blooms add a peppery flavor to salads.

I too grew out "Empress of India" from seed and had an extreme variety of colors. One yellow, one scarlet, and the rest were oranges and red. Beautiful, but not the seed I paid for from a "reputable" seed company. By the way, they clone easily. At least I know what I'm getting with cloning.

I grew Nasturtium 'Empress of India' from seed. It propogated easily. Transplanting was an issue for some of the plants but the majority of them have done well.

The color is striking and the plant is more compact than most nasturtiums. Nice addition to my garden.

I generally love nasturtiums, but I planted Empress of India in a suburb of Atlanta and all of the flowers were orange, not the beautiful red in these pictures, so I was very disappointed. From reading the above it seems the seeds I had might have already hybridized with other nasturtiums where the seeds were grown. Perhaps I will try again, as I would love to use these red flowers in a salad.

This has a neater and smaller habit than most of the nasturtiums I've grown, and the foliage is beautiful in its own right. It's a little less robust than some of the others, too, but it re-seeds freely like all of them.

One note: if you grow it near other nasturtiums it will hybridize, and the striking red bloom color seems to be recessive. I've found plants with Empress of India foliage and dark red-orange flowers. Also striking but not the original. It's been a nice addition to the unnamed nasturtium that came with the house, though, that was colored about like the Whirlybird mix (yellow, orange, yellow-orange.) Combined, they now give me flowers in every color of the rainbow including cream, salmon, dark magenta, and interesting variegations. I can't ever predict what will happen in any given year but I like the results!

'Empress of India' clambering up a viburnum made a show-stopper in my yard.

Empress of India has dark crimson flowers and dark green leaves tinged with a red edging. The unusual leaf color makes it an interesting plant even before it begins to bloom. As with all nasturtiums, the flowers and leaves are edible, having a spicy taste that is a welcome addition to salads or may be used as a wrap for appetizers.