Brassica rapa Chinensis Group (Pak Choi)

This cultivated leafy vegetable is a biennial herb usually grown as an annual. Developed in China, it forms a loose rosette of green leaves with thick white or pale green stalks. Both leaves and stalks are eaten raw, stir-fried, or in soups; the yellow, four-petaled flowers are also edible. The species is native from the central and eastern Mediterranean to Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, and northeastern tropical Africa; it is naturalized in Colombia. Photographed in Colombia.