Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Brassicales > Brassicaceae > Brassica > Brassica napus

Brassica napus (Rapeseed)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Rapeseed (Brassica napus), also known as rape, oilseed rape, rapa, rappi, rapaseed (and, in the case of one particular group of cultivars, canola), is a bright-yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae (mustard or cabbage family), consumed in China (油菜籽: Mandarin Pinyin yóucài; Cantonese:yau choy) and Southern Africa as a vegetable. The name derives from the Latin for turnip, rāpa or rāpum, and is first recorded in English at the end of the 14th century. Older writers usually distinguished the turnip and rape by the adjectives 'round' and 'long' (-'rooted'), respectively. Rutabagas, Brassica napobrassica, are sometimes considered a variety of B. napus. Some botanists also include the closely related B. rapa within B. napus.
View Wikipedia Record: Brassica napus

Infraspecies

Brassica napus f. annua
Brassica napus f. napus
Brassica napus napobrassica
Brassica napus napus (Attributes)
Brassica napus rapifera (rutabaga)
Brassica napus unranked
Brassica napus var. cruenta
Brassica napus var. pabularia

Attributes

Bloom Period [1]  Early Spring
Drought Tolerance [1]  Low
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [1]  None
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [1]  4 months 10 days
Fruit/Seed Abundance [1]  High
Fruit/Seed Begin [1]  Summer
Fruit/Seed End [1]  Summer
Growth Form [1]  Single Crown
Growth Period [1]  Spring, Fall, Winter
Growth Rate [1]  Rapid
Hazards [2]  The oil contained in the seed of some varieties of this species can be rich in erucic acid which is toxic. However, modern cultivars have been selected which are almost free of erucic acid.
Leaf Type [1]  Deciduous
Lifespan [2]  Annual/Biennial
Pollinators [2]  Bees, Bats
Propagation [1]  Seed
Regrowth Rate [1]  Slow
Root Depth [1]  6 inches (15 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [1]  Moderate
Seed Vigor [1]  High
Seeds Per [1]  156960 / lb (346037 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [1]  Erect
Structure [4]  Herb
Usage [2]  The seed contains up to 45% of an edible semi-drying oil, it is used as a luminant, lubricant, in soap making etc; Rapeseed oil has potential market in detergent lubrication oils, emulsifying agents, polyamide fibres, and resins, and as a vegetable wax substitute. According to the Chemical Marketing Reporter (April 26, 1982) "the most common use for the oil is still in the production or erucic acid, a fatty acid used in turn in the manufacture of other chemicals; The seed husks are used in plastering house walls; A good green manure, the deep taproot improves drainage and loosens heavy soils;
Vegetative Spread Rate [1]  None
Flower Color [1]  Yellow
Foliage Color [1]  Dark Green
Fruit Color [1]  Black
Fall Conspicuous [1]  Yes
Flower Conspicuous [1]  Yes
Height [2]  3.936 feet (1.2 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 8 Low Temperature: 10 F° (-12.2 C°) → 20 F° (-6.7 C°)
Light Preference [3]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [3]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [3]  Rich
Soil Moisture [3]  Mostly Dry
Water Use [1]  Moderate
Screening - Summer [1]  Dense
Screening - Winter [1]  Dense
View Plants For A Future Record : Brassica napus

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Erysiphe cruciferarum[6]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 4Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 5Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 8New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0