Shepherd’s purse

Statema, B. C. P.

Plant

Shepherd’s purse

Bursa pastoris; pickpocket, mother’s heart

Known today as: Capsella bursa-pastoris, of the cabbage family, a weed of every garden, its seed-pods shaped like little heart-shaped purses.
Kind: Plant, in 2 older authorities
Constituents: flavonoids, fumaric acid, sinigrin, and 1 more
Earliest authority here: Pliny (AD 23/24–79)
In other databases: Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search

Revised October 1, 2026: An older authority added from a text read in full. Version 1, first published September 30, 2026.

Shepherd’s purse: what was it used for?

A styptic, for bleeding of every kind: from the nose, the lungs, the womb, and wounds.

Shepherd’s purse: what does modern science say?

Used to stop bleeding in the First World War, it is said, when other styptics were scarce; no trial has confirmed it.

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

Constituents

flavonoidsluteolin and quercetin glycosides
fumaric acid ChEMBL
sinigrina glucosinolate
a peptideoxytocin-like in animal uterus, unidentified

Mechanism

The styptic reputation has some basis: extracts contract the uterus in animal preparations, and a trial in 2018 found mefenamic acid with shepherd’s purse reduced heavy menstrual bleeding more than the drug alone (Naafe, 2018); the mechanism is unsettled.

Toxic dose

Safe at tea doses.

Standing

EMA monograph (2011) for heavy menstrual bleeding and minor skin bleeding, on tradition.

EMA/HMPC (2011). Community herbal monograph on Capsella bursa-pastoris (L.) Medikus, herba (EMA/HMPC/262766/2010). Verified against its record
Naafe, M., et al. (2018). “Effect of hydroalcoholic extracts of Capsella bursa-pastoris on heavy menstrual bleeding: a randomized clinical trial.” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 24. Verified against its record · doi:10.1089/acm.2017.0267

Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.

Shepherd’s purse: what lore surrounds it?

Children’s game: a pod is offered to be picked, and it “breaks the heart” of the one who takes it, whence mother’s heart.

Shepherd’s purse: what did the older authorities say?

Pliny: Pliny's thlaspi, the plant whose seed-capsule gives the family its old name, has narrow leaves “turned towards the ground, and divided at the point,” a slender stem “half a foot in length,” a white flower, and a seed “enclosed in a crescent-shaped capsule” that is “similar to a lentil in shape, except that it has a jagged appearance, to which, in fact, it owes its name”; it “is found near footpaths and in hedges.” The acrid seed “carries off bile and pituitous secretions,” and the gathering carries a rule: the person who gathers it “should mention that he is taking them for diseases of the groin, for abscesses of all kinds, and for wounds, and that he should pluck them with one hand only.”
Culpeper: Under Saturn, cold, dry, and binding: it helps all fluxes of blood, the bloody flux, spitting of blood, and bloody urine, and “being bound to the wrists of the hands, and the soles of the feet, it helps the yellow jaundice”; its country names are Shepherd’s Scrip, Pickpurse, and Casewort.

Sources

Grieve, M. (1931). A Modern Herbal, “Shepherd’s Purse.” Book, not indexed
Gerard, J. (1597). The Herball. Verified against its record · doi:10.5962/bhl.title.99400
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 27.113, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. Primary text
Culpeper, N. (1653). The Complete Herbal, “Shepherd’s Purse.” Project Gutenberg #49513. Primary text

Verification

Checked

October 1, 2026

Passes

Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full

Sources

6 cited: 3 verified against its record, 2 primary text, 1 book, not indexed.

Corrections

None were needed.

What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.

Cite This Entry

Version 1 · first published September 30, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026

Chicago: “Shepherd’s purse.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/shepherds-purse.
MLA: “Shepherd’s purse.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/shepherds-purse. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
APA: Shepherd’s purse. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/shepherds-purse

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Shepherd’s purse

Shepherd’s purse: what was it used for?

Shepherd’s purse: what does modern science say?

Pharmacognosy & Toxicology

Shepherd’s purse: what lore surrounds it?

Shepherd’s purse: what did the older authorities say?

Sources

Verification

Cite This Entry

See Also

Sharing flavonoids, fumaric acid, sinigrin

Also in Pliny the Elder

Also in Nicholas Culpeper

Drawing on the same sources: Grieve, Gerard, Culpeper

Nearby in the alphabet