Pink shepherd's-purse

Capsella rubella, pink shepherd's-purse, is a small annual or biennial herb in the family Brassicaceae closely related to the more familiar Capsella bursa-pastoris. It is native to the Mediterranean basin and southwestern Europe and is now widely naturalized across temperate regions of the world as a ruderal weed of arable fields, gardens, roadsides, and waste ground. Plants grow 10–40 cm tall from a slender taproot, with a rosette of pinnatifid to lyrate-lobed basal leaves and a few smaller, clasping cauline leaves. The flowering stem ends in an elongating raceme of small flowers about 2 mm across, with four pale pink to rose-tinged petals — the principal field character distinguishing it from C. bursa-pastoris, which usually has white petals. Sepals are often reddish-tipped. The fruit is a small, flattened, triangular to heart-shaped silicle 4–6 mm long held horizontally on slender ascending pedicels, containing many minute orange-brown seeds.