Capsella bursa-pastoris / shepherd’s purse
- small crucifer with terminal clusters of teeny white flowers
- rosette of small, maybe toothed, leaves
- very distinctive, notched, triangular fruits – like shepherd’s “purses”
- found pretty much anywhere that has/had bare soil
Shepherd’s purse is a small, weedy, more-or-less ugly crucifer that grows everywhere. It gets its common name from the triangular, flat fruits. They are “purse-like”. Yeah, right.
It is an annual and ruderal plant, not native, and because of its size, not really a problem anywhere. According to wikipedia, it is the second-most prolific wild plant in the world. They don’t say what the most prolific is.
The flowers of shepherd’s purse are white, teeny and four petaled. They grow in an umbel-like terminal cluster on stems “towering” over the basal rosette. The leaves are elongated ovals and with irregular, even toothy, edges.
The feature you are most likely to see, even early in the season, is the fruit/seed pods.
Interesting bits: Shepherd’s purse has been labeled a “protocarnivore”, because its seeds attract and kill nematodes as a means to locally enrich the soil
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