An annual or biennial herb, glabrous or slightly hairy, glaucous. Stem 6-18 in., erect, branching. Leaves sessile, 1-4 in., pinnatifid; segments coarsely toothed, terminal, one broad; upper leaves smaller, sometimes very entire. Flowers pale yellow or white, ¾ in. across in racemes; veins dark. Sepals erect, lateral, slightly saccate. Petals clawed. Stigma capitate. Pods erect, pressed against stem, oblong-ovoid, ½-l in., nearly terete, prolonged in a flat-pointed, seedless beak half the length of the valves. Seeds in two rows. Cotyledons folded longitudinally over the radicle (Collett.)
Cultivated as a field-crop in N. W. Provinces, for the oil expressed from the seed. Simla. An escape; cultivated in Central India, Western Himalaya, Upper Gangetic valley.
Use : — It has properties similar to those of the water-cress and the cuckoo flower. It is acrid and used for purposes similar to those of Mustard.
The seeds are dark brown or dark grey and yield 30'8 per cent, of clear yellow oil with a slight mustard like odor and taste. Sp. gr. at 15° C, 0.915 Saponification value, 175.7; iodine value, 101.6. The oil could probably be used as a substitute for rape or colza oil. 100 seeds weigh only 0.25 grm.
Bulletin Imperial Institute 1913.
83.Capsella Barsa-Pastovis, Moench, h.f.b.i., i. 159.
Habitat : — A cosmopolitan weed in the vicinity of cultivation throughout temperate India,
An annual herb, more or less covered with forked hairs; root long, tapering. Stems erect, 6-18 in., branched. Radical leaves variable, usually pinnatifid, sometimes lanceolate, terminal lobe broadly triangular; segments nearly entire; upper leaves pinnatifid, lobed at the base, stem-clasping; uppermost lanceolate. Flowers small, 1/10 in. diam.; white, racemed. Sepals spreading, equal at the base. Pods nearly flat, triangular or obcordate, about ¼ in. broad. Seeds many, in two rows, oblong, punctate; radicle incumbent,
Use : — " This very common weed is bitter and pungent, yields a volatile oil on distillation identical with the oil of mustard, and has been used as an antiscorbutic, also in hæmaturia
