Raphanus raphanistrum L.

Wild Radish; Jointed Charlock; White Charlock

Herb

Annual

Vascular

Wild Radish is an introduced annual or biennial member of the Mustard family (Brassicaceae). It is native to the Mediterranean area, western Asia, and northern Africa. Wild Radish occurs throughout Alabama. It grows in fallow fields, on roadsides, along rail road tracks, and in other disturbed habitats. It is an annual or short-lived biennial from a tap root. The stems are erect, simple or branched, green in color, and retrorsely pubescent. Leaves are basal and cauline. Basal and lower cauline leaves are alternate, petiolate, oblong or obovate in outline, often pinnatifid or deeply dissected, roughly pubescent, with toothed margins. Upper stem leaves are similar but smaller, less dissected, and sessile. Flowers are produced in terminal racemes. Each flower has 4 creamy yellow, white, or rarely pink petals. The fruit is a cylindrical, beaked silique that is strongly constricted between the seed. A silique is a fruit developing from two fused carpels that is dry at maturity and more than two times as long as wide. At maturity the outer walls separate leaving the seed exposed on a papery septum. Wild Radish is considered by some to be the ancestor of the Garden Radish (Raphanus sativus Linnaeus).--A. Diamond

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Not Native

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