Horticulturally Rhubarb is a vegetable, but it is often used more like a fruit. It has a relatively sour taste which makes it well suited to mix with honey or sweet fruits such as strawberries.

Rhubarb is a hardy perennial from Asia and has long been used as a food and medicine in Chinese cultures. It has large, almost jurassic-sized green leaves on bright red or green stalks. The large leaves create great visual structure in a landscape, but only the stalk are eaten, as the leaves contain high concentrations of oxalic acid, which is toxic to humans.