Plant · P-120

Shepherds Purse

Capsella bursa-pastoris

Shepherd's purse is a cool-season annual, edible from root to seed - young leaves cook up like a mild cabbage, the seed carries a peppery mustard bite, and the taproot grates into something like horseradish. Its seed has long been used as a mosquito larvicide, though nobody has pinned down a reliable dose. The plant bolts and dies once summer heat arrives, which is the correct behavior for a cool-season green rather than a failure, and it self-sows so readily that letting a patch go to seed is usually all the encouragement it needs.