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Thlaspi arvense
| Common name: |
Pennycress |
Family: |
Cruciferae |
| Author: |
L. |
Botanical references: |
17, 200 |
| Synonyms: |
|
| Known Hazards: |
None known |
| Range: |
Europe, including Britain, from Norway south and east to N. Africa, W. Asia, Siberia and Japan. |
| Habitat: |
Waste places and a weed of cultivated ground where it can be a serious pest[1, 13, 17]. |
| Edibility Rating (1-5): |
2 | Medicinal Rating (1-5): | 2 |
| Other Common Names: | From various places around the Web, may not be correct. See below. |
| Field Penny-cress [L], Field Pennycress [P,B], Hsi Ming [E], Mithridate Mustard [H], Penny Cress [E], Pennycress [H], Witte Krodde [D], |
| Epithets: | From a Dictionary of Botanical Epithets |
|
arvense = of cultivated fields;
|
| Systematics: | From a USDA
Plants Database |
|
Order: Capparales. Renamed to Brassicaceae -- Mustard family
|
| Other Range Info: |
From the Ethnobotany Database |
|
China; Eurasia; Us
|
| Noxious, Invasive and Injurious Weeds | From USDA
PLANTS database, Weeds Australia
, DEFRA Injurious Weeds | | Listed as noxious/invasive for: Western Australia. |
Physical Characteristics
Annual growing to 0.6m. It is hardy to zone 6 and is not frost tender. It is in flower from May to July, and the seeds ripen from July to September. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Bees and flies.
The plant is self-fertile.
We rate it 2/5 for edibility and
2/5 for medicinal use.
The plant prefers light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils.
The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils.
It cannot grow in the shade.
It requires moist soil.
Habitats and Possible Locations
Cultivated Beds.Edible Uses
Condiment; Leaves; Seed.
Young leaves - raw or cooked[2, 5, 52, 62, 185]. They should always be
harvested before the plant comes into flower or they will be very bitter[9].
Even the young leaves have a somewhat bitter flavour and aroma, and are not
to everyone's taste[9, 85]. They can be added in small quantities to salads
and other foods[9, 183]. They can also be cooked in soups or used as a
potherb, they taste somewhat like mustard but with a hint of onion[183]. For
a leaf, it is very rich in protein[218].
The seed is ground into a powder and used as a mustard substitute[105, 183].
The seed can be sprouted and added to salads[183]. Composition
- Seed (Dry weight)
-
In grammes per 100g weight of food:
Water: 0
Protein: 25
Fat: 45
Source: [218]
Notes
: The figures given for fat were a range from 28.2 - 62.2 grammes.
- Leaves (Dry weight)
-
In grammes per 100g weight of food:
Water: 0
Protein: 54.2
Carbohydrate: 33.1
In milligrammes per 100g weight of food:
VitaminC: 1900
Source: [218]
Medicinal Uses
Disclaimer
Antibacterial; Antidote; Antiinflammatory; Antirheumatic; Blood tonic; Diaphoretic; Diuretic; Expectorant; Febrifuge; Hepatic; Ophthalmic; Tonic.
Antirheumatic, diuretic[46, 61].
The seed is a tonic[218]. Both the seed and the young shoots are said to be
good for the eyes[218]. The seeds are used in Tibetan medicine and are
considered to have an acrid taste and a cooling potency[241]. They are
anti-inflammatory and febrifuge, being used in the treatment of pus in the
lungs, renal inflammation, appendicitis, seminal and vaginal discharges[241].
The entire plant is antidote, anti-inflammatory, blood tonic, depurative,
diaphoretic, expectorant, febrifuge and hepatic[176, 218]. It is used in the
treatment of carbuncles, acute appendicitis, intestinal abscess, post-partum
pain, dysmenorrhoea and endometriosis[176]. Use with caution since large
doses can cause a decrease in white blood cells, nausea and dizziness[176].
The plant has a broad antibacterial activity[218], effective against the
growth of Staphylococci and streptococci[176].
Other Uses
Oil.
The seed contains 20 - 30% of a semi-drying oil, it is used for
lighting[74].
Cultivation details
An easily grown plant, it succeeds in most soils. Dislikes shade.
Propagation
Seed - sow in situ in March or April.
Suppliers
For more details of plant suppliers please see our Suppliers Page which lists many more places to look.
Web References
- [H] Details of Scandanavian and European Common names in Henriette's names database
- [E] Ethnobotany Data
(common names, uses, countries) from the Ethnobotany Database.
- [V] Images
from the Vascular Plant Image Gallery of the Texas A&M Bioinformatics Working Group.
- [B] Data
(Latin & Common names, other references) from the BONAP's Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
- [G] Data
(Common Names, Uses, Distribution) from the USDA/ARS NPGS's GRIN taxonomic database.
- [C] Taxon data.
from the CalFlora database.
- Images
from the CalPhoto database.
- [P] Data.
(uses, distribution, wetland) from the USDA'a Plants database.
- [HP] Links, Photos, Suppliers from Hortiplex Plant Database
References for thlaspi arvense (a possible synonym).
See the PFAF Links Pages for other sources.
Also try Photos and info from the The Plants Database which has 14,000 images.
[1] F. Chittendon. RHS Dictionary of Plants plus Supplement. 1956 Oxford University Press 1951
Comprehensive listing of species and how to grow them. Somewhat outdated, it has been replaces in 1992 by a new dictionary (see [200]).
[2] Hedrick. U. P. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. Dover Publications 1972 ISBN 0-486-20459-6
Lots of entries, quite a lot of information in most entries and references.
[5] Mabey. R. Food for Free. Collins 1974 ISBN 0-00-219060-5
Edible wild plants found in Britain. Fairly comprehensive, very few pictures and rather optimistic on the desirability of some of the plants.
[9] Launert. E. Edible and Medicinal Plants. Hamlyn 1981 ISBN 0-600-37216-2
Covers plants in Europe. a drawing of each plant, quite a bit of interesting information.
[13] Triska. Dr. Hamlyn Encyclopaedia of Plants. Hamlyn 1975 ISBN 0-600-33545-3
Very interesting reading, giving some details of plant uses and quite a lot of folk-lore.
[17] Clapham, Tootin and Warburg. Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press 1962
A very comprehensive flora, the standard reference book but it has no pictures.
[46] Uphof. J. C. Th. Dictionary of Economic Plants. Weinheim 1959
An excellent and very comprehensive guide but it only gives very short descriptions of the uses without any details of how to utilize the plants. Not for the casual reader.
[52] Larkcom. J. Salads all the Year Round. Hamlyn 1980
A good and comprehensive guide to temperate salad plants, with full organic details of cultivation.
[61] Usher. G. A Dictionary of Plants Used by Man. Constable 1974 ISBN 0094579202
Forget the sexist title, this is one of the best books on the subject. Lists a very extensive range of useful plants from around the world with very brief details of the uses. Not for the casual reader.
[62] Elias. T. and Dykeman. P. A Field Guide to N. American Edible Wild Plants. Van Nostrand Reinhold 1982 ISBN 0442222009
Very readable.
[74] Komarov. V. L. Flora of the USSR. Israel Program for Scientific Translation 1968
An immense (25 or more large volumes) and not yet completed translation of the Russian flora. Full of information on plant uses and habitats but heavy going for casual readers.
[85] Harrington. H. D. Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains. University of New Mexico Press 1967 ISBN 0-8623-0343-9
A superb book. Very readable, it gives the results of the authors experiments with native edible plants.
[105] Tanaka. T. Tanaka's Cyclopaedia of Edible Plants of the World. Keigaku Publishing 1976
The most comprehensive guide to edible plants I've come across. Only the briefest entry for each species, though, and some of the entries are more than a little dubious. Not for the casual reader.
[176] Yeung. Him-Che. Handbook of Chinese Herbs and Formulas. Institute of Chinese Medicine, Los Angeles 1985
A very good Chinese herbal.
[183] Facciola. S. Cornucopia - A Source Book of Edible Plants. Kampong Publications 1990 ISBN 0-9628087-0-9
Excellent. Contains a very wide range of conventional and unconventional food plants (including tropical) and where they can be obtained (mainly N. American nurseries but also research institutes and a lot of other nurseries from around the world.
[185] Mitchell. A. F. Conifers in the British Isles. HMSO 1975 ISBN 0-11-710012-9
A bit out of date (first published in 1972), but an excellent guide to how well the various species of conifers grow in Britain giving locations of trees.
[200] Huxley. A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. MacMillan Press 1992 ISBN 0-333-47494-5
Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.
[218] Duke. J. A. and Ayensu. E. S. Medicinal Plants of China Reference Publications, Inc. 1985 ISBN 0-917256-20-4
Details of over 1,200 medicinal plants of China and brief details of their uses. Often includes an analysis, or at least a list of constituents. Heavy going if you are not into the subject.
[241] Tsarong. Tsewang. J. Tibetan Medicinal Plants Tibetan Medical Publications, India 1994 ISBN 81-900489-0-2
A nice little pocket guide to the subject with photographs of 95 species and brief comments on their uses.
Readers Comments
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Bibliography
Plant information taken from the
Plants For A Future -
Species Database.
Copyright (c) 1997-2003.
WEB search engine by Rich Morris - Home Page- Contact Info
Blagdon Cross, Ashwater, Beaworthy, Devon, EX21 5DF, UK.
Website: www.pfaf.org Phone: 0845 458 4719/_44(0) 1208 872963 This page (UK) http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/cgi-bin/pfaf/arr_html?Thlaspi+arvense
This page (US) http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Thlaspi+arvense
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