Rocket, or Garden Rocket

Now sold in many urban green groceries under its Italian dialect name arugula—the proper name in Italian is rucola. Garden rocket has been a popular salad green among the Pennsylvania Dutch since its introduction into Pennsylvania in the late seventeenth century. I have found it widely naturalized in parts of Lebanon, Berks, Lancaster, Dauphin, and Schuylkill counties. The naturalized variety is much more robust in its growing habit, larger leafed, better flavored, and a deeper green than the arugula sold commercially in Philadelphia. This may be a product of natural hybridization. Some plants attain the size of oak leaf lettuce before turning bitter.