Its English common name originated when it flourished after the Great Fire of London in 1666, although it is not native to Britain and it does not tend to persist there.

It has an erect, usually branched stem which is green, terete, solid and almost glabrous, except for a smattering of short (0.5 mm), soft hairs.

Since then it has accumulated many synonyms, including Phryne laxata (by Pietro Bubani in 1901) and Arabis charbonnelii (by Augustin Léveillé in 1913), but the original name is still accepted as the correct one.

[9] London rocket is thought to be native in the Middle East and as far eastward as NW India or Mongolia, and westward throughout North Africa and southern Europe.

Overall, the population has remained more or less stable for centuries, although its transient nature means there are many more places where it used to occur than there are at any one time, leading to the mistaken impression that it is perpetually declining.

[6] The Database of Insects and their Food Plants lists just two species that make use of London rocket: Ceutorhynchus hirtulus Germar is a weevil which lives in the soil and creates stem galls for it larvae,[13] whereas Cabbage looper moth larvae eat the leaves of this and many other species in the cabbage family.

The first published record of this species in Britain was in Christopher Merret's Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum in 1666, where he described Irio laevis as being "ubique fere in suburbiis Lond.

[14][15] It had, however, been noticed at least a decade earlier: William How (1620-1656) had annotated his own copy of his book Phytologia Britannica (1650) with the comment "near White Chappel east from Aldgate, London"; a discovery he attributed to John Goodyer.

[16][17] Robert Morison, the physician to King Charles II, attributed their appearance to spontaneous generation when he observed that “these hot bitter plants with four petals and pods were produced spontaneously without seed by the ashes of the fire mixed with salt and lime.”[18] In contrast, Dr E J Salisbury, in his study of the bombsites of London after the Blitz in 1940, "failed to find a single specimen, nor has any other reliable observer reported it.

[21] In desert regions of Arabia and Egypt, London rocket is considered an important source of fodder for livestock.

[23] London rocket is used in the Middle East to treat coughs and chest congestion, to relieve rheumatism, to detoxify the liver and spleen, and to reduce swelling and clean wounds.