We studied the characteristics of a circular metallic grating illuminated by broadband radial and azimuthal polarizations. We demonstrated that this scenario is the cylindrical analogue of a one-dimensional Cartesian grating illuminated by TM and TE polarizations. We measured the transmission spectra of this structure and observed strong polarization selectivity and, specifically, a resonance for radial polarization excitation, indicating a strong coupling to surface plasmons. The structure may be attractive for applications where pure radial polarization is needed, such as tight focusing, material processing, and particle trapping. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America