What is shepherd's purse

Many people may have only eaten shepherd's purse but have never heard of its name. In fact, this ingredient has a more easy-to-understand name, which is coriander. This dish has a very strong fragrance when eaten. It can be used as an ingredient for cooking, or as a supplementary ingredient to add flavor to the food. It can achieve a good flavoring effect and is an ingredient that many people love to eat.

Shepherd's purse (scientific name: Capsella bursa-pastoris (Linn.) Medic.) is the common name for shepherd's purse of the dicotyledonous class, Cruciferae family, and Capsella genus. It is an annual or biennial herb, 10-50 cm high, glabrous, with simple hairs or forked hairs; the stem is erect, single or branched from the bottom. The basal leaves are clustered in a rosette shape, with large heads pinnately divided, the top lobes are ovate to oblong, the lateral lobes are 3-8 pairs, oblong to ovate, acuminate at the apex, shallowly lobed, or with irregular coarse serrations or nearly entire; the stem leaves are narrow lanceolate or lanceolate, with sagittal base, clasping the stem, and with notches or serrations on the edges.

The racemes are terminal and axillary, with oblong sepals; the petals are white, ovate, and have short claws. The short silique is inverted triangular or inverted heart-shaped triangular, flat, glabrous, slightly concave at the apex, and the petals have reticulate veins; the seeds are in 2 rows, oblong, and light brown.

It is called shepherd's purse locally, and is also called white flower vegetable and black heart vegetable in the north. The Yao people call it "grass stalk vegetable", and it is called shepherd's purse in Henan, Hubei and other regions. People in Sichuan call it "dried rape". It is a popular edible wild vegetable. It is a medicinal and edible plant with high medicinal value. It has diuretic, hemostatic, heat-clearing, eyesight-improving and accumulation-removing effects; the stems and leaves are edible vegetables; the seeds contain 20-30% oil, which is a drying oil and is used to make paint and soap.

Its Latin species name comes from the Latin, meaning small box, "shepherd's purse", which describes its silique shape as a shepherd's purse. The English name is "shepherd's purse".

Originated from Eastern Europe and Asia Minor, it is distributed almost all over my country and widely distributed in temperate regions of the world. Wild, occasionally cultivated. Growing on hillsides, beside fields and roadsides.

Petiole 5-40 mm long; stem leaves narrowly lanceolate or lanceolate, 5-6.5 mm long, 2-15 mm wide, base sagittal, clasping the stem, with notched or serrated edges. The radicular leaves are pinnately divided, mostly curled, and lanceolate when flattened. The apical lobes are larger and have coarse teeth on the edges. The surface is gray-green or withered yellow, some are brown, papery and fragile. The stem leaves are oblong or linear in appearance, and the base is ear-shaped and clasping the stem.