CAPSELLA. 



97 



Description. — Flowers small, white. Pods obcordate-triangular, flat- 

 tened at right angles to the partition, wingless, each valve 10- to 12-seeded, 

 in long, loose racemes. Cotyledons incumbent. 



A small annual, with an erect, hairy stem 

 and a long, tapering root. Radical leaves 

 clustered, pinnatifid or toothed, rarely entire ; 

 stem-leaves oblong or lanceolate, entire or 

 toothed, clasping the stem with projecting 

 auricles. It flowers from early spring until 

 winter. 



Habitat. — A native of Europe or West- 

 ern Asia, it has followed man into almost 

 every extra-tropical region and become one 

 of the commonest weeds known. 



Part Used. — The herb — not official. 



Constituents. — Shepherd's purse has a 

 pungent, bitter taste, and on distillation 

 yields a volatile oil identical with oil of mus- 

 tard. 



Preparations. — There are none. The ex- 

 pressed juice or infusion may be employed. 



Medical Properties and Uses. — This plant 

 has been used as a tonic, astringent, and 

 antiscorbutic. There is perhaps more tes- 

 timony in support of its efficacy as an as- 

 tringent in hemorrhages from the lungs, 

 kidneys, bladder, uterus, etc., than for any other purpose, but even this 

 testimony is incomplete and unsatisfactory. Once highly esteemed, it 

 has fallen into entire — and probably merited — neglect. 



Pig. 110. — Capsella Bursa-pastoris. 



VBOLACE/E. 



Character of the Order. — Perennial, rarely annual, herbs, with simple 

 alternate or radical stipulate leaves and nodding flowers, either solitary 

 or in cymes, racemes, or panicles. Calyx of 5 persistent . sepals, forolla 

 somewhat irregular, 1-spurred, of five unequal petals, imbricated in the 

 bud. Stamens 5, hypogynous, their filaments projecting beyond the an- 

 ther cells and converging over the pistil. Ovary 1-celled, with 3 parietal 

 placenta ; style club-shaped ; stigma simple, turned to one side. Fruit a 

 3-valved, many-seeded capsule, the valves, after opening, folding longitu- 

 dinally and projecting the seeds. Seeds comparatively large, anatropous ; 

 cotyledons flat. 



An order of plants more remarkable for their beauty and fragrance — 

 many of them lack the latter quality — than for any medicinal or economic 



