Under the shields of its parents.
It lies there all safe, so near the warm ground,
Under the shields of its parents!
MORE ABOUT THE TROPÆOLUM.
The tropæolum, which people call nasturtium, has shields to defend itself.
Warriors are content with one shield, but the tropæolum has many.
They have only to protect themselves from the darts of the enemy, but the tropæolum has a harder task: it has to protect itself against the pangs of hunger.
It needs many shields to do this, for hunger is a tireless foe, and has his quiver always full of arrows.
You see, in the tropæolum the shields are the leaves, and they are held out on long stems to catch the darts Apollo, the sun, flings at them. These are not unfriendly darts, but as they strike the little shields of the tropæolum they make them tingle with life. Then the shield leaves go to work and make food for the plant. They make starch and many other things. They make a spicy juice, for one thing, that causes our tongues to smart if we taste it. Sometimes we bite a tropæolum stem, for we like the taste of the sharp juice. But we do not want too much of it, for it makes the palate at the back of the nose tingle, and that is why we call it “nasturtium.” “Nasturtium,” you know, comes from two Latin words, nasus tortus, which mean “convulsed nose”; and nobody likes to have a “convulsed nose” very long at a time!