Radish
Raphanus sativus
A fast-growing annual brassica grown for its swollen taproot, which may be a scarlet marble, a long white finger or, in winter types, a black-skinned or daikon root the size of a forearm. The bristly, lobed leaves and the plump green seed pods are eaten as well, all parts carrying the same peppery mustard-oil heat.
Almost always a garden and allotment plant in Britain and Ireland, sown in open ground on light, moisture-retentive soil in sun. It escapes readily where plants are left to seed or compost is spread, appearing as a short-lived casual on tips, waste ground and arable margins.
No toxicity of note: root, leaves, flowers and young pods are all eaten raw or cooked. The mustard-oil heat can irritate the stomach in quantity, and anyone managing a thyroid condition may want to keep large raw brassica helpings in check. Self-sown plants on tips and verges may be standing in contaminated ground.
Always use more than one reference to confirm a plant. You are responsible for what you choose to forage.
Root
The swollen upper taproot usually sits half out of the soil, smooth-skinned and tapering abruptly into a slender tail. Round summer types are scarlet, pink or white; winter types are long or barrel-shaped and can be black, green or white.
Leaves
Rough and bristly to the touch, deeply lobed with one much larger rounded lobe at the tip, held in a loose rosette on clear stalks. Crushing a leaf gives the same peppery scent as the root, which is the quickest confirmation you are looking at a radish and not a lettuce or beet seedling in the row.
Flowers
Four petals in a cross, white to pale lilac and often veined darker, on a branching stem up to about a metre when the plant bolts. Yellow flowers on a bolted brassica bed mean charlock or rape rather than radish.
Seed pods
Plump, smooth and cylindrical with a tapering beak, spongy inside and not breaking apart when ripe. Wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum) has a strongly constricted, beaded pod that snaps into single-seeded segments — the clearest separation between the two once flowering has finished.
Texture and heat
Best pulled young: heat builds with age and dry spells, and an older root often goes pithy or hollow at the centre once the plant has started to run to seed.
Updated 2026-08-07T21:15:28.369Z · Part of the shared Foragers Log catalogue · Vegetable