Arugula or rocket is an edible annual plant in the family Brassicaceae used as a leaf vegetable for its fresh, tart, bitter, and peppery flavor. Other common names include garden rocket, and eruca. It is also called "ruchetta", "rucola", "rucoli", "rugula", "colewort", and "roquette". Eruca sativa, which is widely popular as a salad vegetable, is a species of Eruca native to the Mediterranean region, from Morocco and Portugal in the west to Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt and Turkey in the east.
It is sometimes conflated with Diplotaxis tenuifolia, known as "perennial wall rocket", another plant of the family Brassicaceae that is used in the same manner.