Nasturtium

Seeds of nasturtium were brought to Europe by Jesuit monks in the middle of the 16th century. The first European to receive a flowering plant is J. Plateau from the Italian city of Nervi, who sent an image of nasturtium to the famous medieval scholar R. Dodoneus (1517-1586), nicknamed for his erudition by the "Dutch Theophrastus". Soon the nasturtium came to England to the gardener D. Gerard, the compiler of the first garden catalog (1596), which contained a description of 1030 plant species. Nasturtium immediately appealed to Europeans.