Log In New Account Sitemap
  • Home
  • Specimen Search
    • Search Collections
    • Map Search
    • Exsiccati Search
  • Images
    • Image Browser
    • Search Images
  • Flora Projects
    • Arizona
    • New Mexico
    • Colorado Plateau
    • Plant Atlas of Arizona (PAPAZ)
    • Sonoran Desert
    • Teaching Checklists
  • Agency Floras
    • NPS - Intermountain
    • USFWS - Region 2
    • BLM Flora
    • Coronado NF
  • Dynamic Floras
    • Dynamic Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Additional Websites
    • New Mexico Flores
    • Plant Atlas Project of Arizona (PAPAZ)
    • Southwest Colorado Wildflowers
    • Vascular Plants of the Gila Wilderness
    • Consortium of Midwest Herbaria
    • Consortium of Southern Rocky Mountain Herbaria
    • Intermountain Region Herbaria Network (IRHN)
    • Mid-Atlantic Herbaria
    • North American Network of Small Herbaria (NANSH)
    • Northern Great Plains Herbaria
    • Red de Herbarios del Noroeste de México (northern Mexico)
    • SERNEC - Southeastern USA
    • Texas Oklahoma Regional Consortium of Herbaria (TORCH)
  • Resources
    • Help
    • Webinars
    • Joining a Symbiota Portal
Raphanus sativus L.  
Go To Encyclopedia of Life...
Family: Brassicaceae
Radish, more...cultivated radish, garden radish, wild radish
[Raphanus raphanistrum var. sativus (L.) G. Beck]
Raphanus sativus image
  • FNA
  • vPlants
  • Gleason & Cronquist
  • Web Links
Suzanne I. Warwick in Flora of North America (vol. 7)
Annuals or biennials, roots often fleshy in cultivated forms; often sparsely scabrous or hispid, sometimes glabrous. Stems often simple from base, (1-)4-13 dm. Basal leaves: petiole 1-30 cm; blade oblong, obovate, oblanceolate, or spatulate in outline, lyrate or pinnatisect, sometimes undivided, 2-60 cm × 10-200 mm, margins dentate, apex obtuse or acute; lobes 1-12 each side, oblong or ovate, to 10 cm × 50 mm. Cauline leaves (distal) subsessile; blade often undivided. Fruiting pedicels spreading to ascending, 5-40 mm. Flowers: sepals 5.5-10 × 1-2 mm, glabrous or sparsely pubescent; petals usually purple or pink, sometimes white (veins often darker), 15-25 × 3-8 mm, claw to 14 mm; filaments 5-12 mm; anthers 1.5-2 mm. Fruits usually fusiform or lanceolate, sometimes ovoid or cylindrical; valvular segment 1-3.5 mm; terminal segment (1-)3-15(-25) cm × (5-)7-13(-15) mm, smooth or, rarely, slightly constricted between seeds, not ribbed, beak narrowly to broadly conical to linear; style 10-40 mm. Seeds globose or ovoid, 2.5-4 mm diam. 2n = 18. Flowering May-Jul. Roadsides, disturbed areas, waste places, cultivated fields, gardens, orchards; 0-1000 m; introduced; B.C., Man., N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Que., Sask.; Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., Nebr., Nev., N.H., N.J., N.Mex., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Oreg., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., Wyo.; Europe; Asia; introduced also in Mexico, Bermuda, South America, Africa, Atlantic Islands, Australia. Raphanus sativus is an important crop plant that is cultivated and/or weedy in most temperate regions worldwide. It is unknown as a wild plant, but suggested to be derived from R. raphanistrum subsp. landra, which is endemic to the Mediterranean region (L. J. Lewis-Jones et al. 1982).

The Morton Arboretum
Annual herb with a thick taproot 30 cm - 0.8 m tall Flowers: in branched clusters (raceme). Sepals four, upright, tips rounded. Petals four, pinkish purple to white, 1 - 1.5 cm long, bases narrowed. Fruit: a long, narrow pod, cylindrical, spongy, separated into two distinct parts (the lower part often missing). When dry it is prominently ribbed and not constricted between the seeds. Lower leaves: pinnately divided, oblong. Upper leaves: alternate.

Similar species: Raphanus raphanistrum is similar but has yellow flowers and a less thick taproot.

Flowering: late June to mid-October

Habitat and ecology: Introduced from Europe. A commonly cultivated garden vegetable that occasionally escapes into waste areas and disturbed places.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Etymology: Raphanus means "quickly appears." Sativus means cultivated.

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
With more thickened taproot, pink-purple to white pet, and spongy fr not constricted between the seeds, the lower member usually obsolete, occasionally escapes from cult. but apparently does not long persist.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
  • Encyclopedia of Life
  • W3Tropicos
  • USDA PLANTS Database
  • Flora of North America
  • International Plant Names Index
  • Google Search Engine
  • Google Images
  • BOLD Systems - Barcode of Life Data Systems
  • Global Biotic Interactions (GloBI)
  • NCBI - National Center for Biotechnology Information
Raphanus sativus
Open Interactive Map
Raphanus sativus image
Liz Makings  
Raphanus sativus image
Morton Arboretum  
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
David Thornburg  
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
David Thornburg  
Raphanus sativus image
David Thornburg  
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
David Thornburg  
Raphanus sativus image
David Thornburg  
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Raphanus sativus image
Click to Display
100 Initial Images
- - - - -
View All Images
The National Science Foundation
Developments of SEINet, Symbiota, and associated specimen databases have been supported by National Science Foundation Grants (DBI 9983132, BRC 0237418, DBI 0743827, DBI 0847966)