Diplotaxis acris(Forssk.) Boiss.

WFO wfo-0000650384 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Diplotaxis acris, photographed by Mitch Van Dyke
fig. a Mitch Van Dyke, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-27 / obs. 187346512
Diplotaxis acris, photographed by Mitch Van Dyke
fig. b Mitch Van Dyke, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186874947
Diplotaxis acris, photographed by John Brew
fig. c John Brew, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 29716377
Diplotaxis acris, photographed by John Brew
fig. d John Brew, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 29730927
Diplotaxis acris, photographed by Mitch Van Dyke
fig. e Mitch Van Dyke, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 187346617
Diplotaxis acris, photographed by Mitch Van Dyke
fig. f Mitch Van Dyke, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186874992
Diplotaxis acris, photographed by John Brew
fig. g John Brew, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 29716465
Diplotaxis acris, photographed by Sam J. Thomas
fig. h Sam J. Thomas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61634504

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 11 botanical countries

Regions where Diplotaxis acris is native: Chad, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Türkiye, Yemen ChadEgyptLibyaIraqKuwaitOmanPalestineSaudi ArabiaSinaiTürkiyeYemen
Native distribution of Diplotaxis acris, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Iraq IRQ ASIA-TEMPERATE
Kuwait KUW
Oman OMA
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Sinai SIN
Türkiye TUR
Yemen YEM
Chad CHA AFRICA
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 111 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.2 °C 7.1 °C 12.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 32.9 °C 36.9 °C 38.5 °C
Annual rainfall 22 mm 88 mm 334 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 0 mm 0 mm 2 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 111 research-grade observations of Diplotaxis acris that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 6 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Brassica acris (Forssk.) Kuntze
  • Brassica fragilis Sieber ex Spreng.
  • Diplotaxis sieberi C.Presl
  • Euzomum acre (Forssk.) Webb
  • Hesperis acris Forssk.
  • Moricandia hesperidiflora DC.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.