Today's spotlight species is a small plant in the cabbage family. Unlike cabbages, which are robust plants with quite large yellow flowers, this species - Shepherd's Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) - is quite a spindly thing with small white flowers. Like one of our previous spotlight species, Annual Meadow-grass (Day 5 - Annual Meadow-grass), this is an extremely common and widespread plant and if you live in the UK, even in an urban area, it is very likely that you could find it now if you stepped outside your front door and went for a short walk, looking at the plants growing out of pavement cracks or on the edges of grass verges.
The name refers to the heart-shaped seedpods. According to the 17th Century botanist William Coles "It is called Shepherd's purse or scrip from the likeness that the seed hath with that kind of leathearne bag, wherein Shepherds carry their victualls into the field." I have been unable to find a picture of what the actual leather shepherd's bag would have looked like so I can't comment on whether it is a close resemblence. However, the seedpods are very distinctive and have often been the thing that has brought me back down to earth when I have been trying to turn this otherwise quite variable plant into something rarer and more interesting.
Although it is a fairly little regarded weed in the UK (by most people anyway), in several Asian countries it is a commercial food crop, and is used in dishes such as won-ton soup in China and in the Korean dish 'namul'.
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