Shepherd’s Purse is a member of the cabbage family which grows up to 40cm. It is a slightly hairy annual with upright stems which hold long stalked white flowers on leafless cups. The fruit is very distinctive and gives the plant its common name being 2cm green heart shaped which form on the end of the flower stalks.

The plant flowers between March and December and can be found among crops, in gardens and on waste ground across many countries across the world.  The plant contains Glycosides, Saponins and amines. It is a useful plant with leaves that can be used in salads and the plant itself as an antiseptic diuretic as well as sometimes used in herbal remedies to treat gall-bladder and kidney problems.

What Culpepper says

SHEPHERD'S PURSE

It is called Whoreman's Permacety, Shepherd's Scrip, Shepherd's Pounce, Toywort, Pickpurse, and Casewort.

Description. The root is small, white, and perishes every year. The leaves are small and long, of a pale green colour, and deeply cut in on both sides, among which spring up a stalk which is small and round, containing small leaves upon it even to the top. The flowers are white and very small; after which come the little cases which hold the seed, which are flat, almost in the form of a heart.

Place. They are frequent in this county, almost by every pathside.

Time. They flower all the summer long; nay some of them are so fruitful, that they flower twice a year.

Government and virtues. It is under the dominion of Saturn, and of a cold, dry, and binding nature, like to him. It helps all fluxes of blood, either caused by inward or outward wounds; as also flux of the belly, and bloody flux, spitting blood, and bloody urine, stops the terms in women; being bound to the wrists of the hands, and the soles of the feet, it helps the yellow jaundice. The herb being made into a poultice, helps inflammations and St. Anthony's fire. The juice being dropped into the ears, heals the pains, noise, and mutterings thereof. A good ointment may be made of it for all wounds, especially wounds in the head.

This plant is a remarkable instance of the truth of an observation which there is too frequently room to make, namely, that Providence has made the most useful things most common, and for that reason we neglect them: few plants possess greater virtues than this, and yet it is utterly disregarded.