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I'm pretty sure that what I have growing near my house is wild turnip/rape aka brassica napus.
Its fits the description written here but none of the pictures are exact.
http://www.luontoportti.com/suomi/en/ku ... ild-turnip

Its flowers look exactly like that, but the leaves are a drop different, but still look like they're in the same family.
What I want to know is- are there any poisonous members of the brassica family, or am I pretty safe with any of them?

Just as a side note, one of them where they're growing is covered in caterpillars...

I'll try to get a pick up when my camera batteries are charged.

Oh- and I know for a fact that brassica napus grows in my country/region.

A lot of people say they're inedible - but I assume you mean are they toxic? The answer, to the best of my knowledge, is that all brassicas are safe to consume in normal quantities. The problem may be that there are other plants which look like brassicas but are not, and they may not be so innocuous.

Mike

Ok, here's the pic.


Look familiar?

When I wrote inedible, I meant non nutritious and or dangerous to eat. Not just "tastes bad" as people think of broccoli, etc... ;)

Your picture is a little too small to tell, but it looks like cima d rapa selvatica to me and it's full of nutrients (the Italian poor have lived off wild rapa and cicoria for generations). If the flowerhead is yellow it will have a proper punchy, mustardy flavour to it and if it's white it's still edible but has slightly less flavour.

contadina wrote:Your picture is a little too small to tell, but it looks like cima d rapa selvatica to me and it's full of nutrients (the Italian poor have lived off wild rapa and cicoria for generations). If the flowerhead is yellow it will have a proper punchy, mustardy flavour to it and if it's white it's still edible but has slightly less flavour.

Ok, I can't find what the scientific name is for cima d rapa selvatica, so I can't look it up to compare.
I looked up cima di rapa and got broccoli rabe, but it isn't that. The leaves are smoother- broccoli rabe from the pictures seems to have feathered leaves. These are covered with a slight hairiness/prickliness (similar to okra in that sense) and are rounder. Are there different types of cima di rapa?
I dug up the roots and theres a tap root that smells strongly of turnip.

Sorry for the small pic before- apparently I copied only the thumbnail, not the big pic.

Basically what I want to know is- if I'm 100% positive its in the brassica family, it smells like a turnip, has brassica leaves and flowers- even if I don't know its exact name, do you think its safe and would you feel comfortable eating it and feeding it to your family?

Cima di rapa is from the same subspecies as the turnip, so should smell a bit turnip-like.
Here's some I picked this morning, although these are cultivated so the heads are bigger.
http://www.growveg.info/gallery/main.ph ... mId=156293
The wild variety has hairier leaves, but is still edible. If you click on the picture called rapacino http://www.empolimicologica.it/erbe.asp it shows it growing wild.

contadina wrote:Cima di rapa is from the same subspecies as the turnip, so should smell a bit turnip-like.
Here's some I picked this morning, although these are cultivated so the heads are bigger.
http://www.growveg.info/gallery/main.ph ... mId=156293
The wild variety has hairier leaves, but is still edible. If you click on the picture called rapacino http://www.empolimicologica.it/erbe.asp it shows it growing wild.

Oh ok, so if you were me, you'd eat it, no qualms about it?

Thanks for that link. The first pic is glossier than what I got, but looks similar. The second link I'm not sure is exactly the same, but it definintely shows a few other species that I know grow around here. Same geographic region, so it makes sense.

As for the differences, the leaves on the ones I picked seem to stop and start with small little lobes attached to the stem and then bigger ones and bigger ones, and they're in a rosette of sorts...

I still am not sure 100% that its the rapacina- the leaves look different...