PlantFiles: Watercress
Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum

From your friends at Botanical Interests: Watercress adds snappy, peppery flavor to sandwiches, soups, & salads. An ancient plant, it has been popular around the world for its nutrtional and medicinal value. Watercress is a healthy source of vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin A, C, and K as well as potassium, iron, and calcium. Its anti-oxidant properties are also being studied. An aquatic, water-loving plant, it grows naturally along streams and lakes. You can easily grow it in your garden or indoors in a container that sits in a a tray of water to keep it moist. (Confining it to a container outdoors will keep it from spreading.) It is perennial to USDA zone 4 (if plants do not dry out in the winter).

Water cress is a naturalized alien species found in 46 of Ohio's counties

The leaves are are high in vitamines A and C and Iodine. Traditionally used as a diuretic and "blood purifier". Also used to treat lethargy, rheumatism, heart trouble, bronchitis, scurvey and goiter. A leaf extract is used in India to treat vitamine deficiency. And it tastes real good!

Watercress is hardy here in zone 6...it grows in the springs that are so abundant in our area. Since the water stays above freezing, perhaps that is why it survives. It is good in salads or on a cucumber sandwich where it lends a peppery flavor.

I grow Watercress to filter water from fish production, it does well as a component of a bio-filter and provides good food as a by-product. Watercress realy spices up a salad nicely!