Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Wild radish

Raphanus raphanistrum

Also called Radish, Field Wall Flower, Jointed Charlock, Jointed Radish, Jointed Wild Radish, Sea Radish, White Charlock

Wild radish
Photo: Jacob Sturm, Public domain

Wild radish is an annual or biennial weed in the cabbage family, native to Europe, North Africa and western Asia and now invasive in many regions. It grows fast in disturbed ground, roadsides and fields, and needs little care beyond full sun.

Family
Brassicaceae (Cabbage family)
Grows as
Annual
Light
Full sun
Water
Needs little supplementary water; it copes well with dry, disturbed ground.
Soil
Tolerates a wide range of soils, including poor and disturbed ground.
Temperature
Grows in temperate climates; frost-tolerant as a young plant, frost-sensitive when flowering in hot weather. Exact limits not in sources.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic
Edible
Yes, some parts
Native range
Europe to Medit. and C. Asia
Climate
temperate

About

Raphanus raphanistrum, also known as wild radish, white charlock or jointed charlock, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae. The species is native to western Asia, Europe and parts of Northern Africa. It has been introduced into most parts of the world and is regarded as a habitat threatening invasive species in many areas, for example, Australia. It spreads rapidly and is often found growing on roadsides or in other places where the ground has been disturbed. The cultivated radish, widely used as a root vegetable, is sometimes considered to be one of its subspecies as Raphanus raphanistrum subsp. sativus.

Where it grows

It is native to temperate regions of North Africa, Europe and parts of Western Asia.

Uses

All tender parts of the plant are edible. The leaves and flowers have a spicy taste or aftertaste. The seedpods can be eaten, as can the outer skin of the root (after being washed). It is said that John Walker cultivated sea radish root as an alternative to horseradish after discovering the plant on the west coast of Scotland as early as 1753.

Other Raphanus plants

Cultivated Radish · Daikon · Sakurajima radish · Radish

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Raphanus raphanistrum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…