Shepherd's purse Coloring Pages

The real name of "Shepherd's purse"

Shepherd's purse—have you heard of it before? People sometimes say, "Not even Shepherd's purse would grow here!" The real name of that plant is Shepherd's purse.
In the corner of the schoolyard, beside the path to school, or in the edge of a garden or field. If it gets enough sun, it grows anywhere! When spring comes, it grows a thin straight stem and blooms with tiny white flowers.

The shape of the fruit looks like a shamisen "plectrum"

The best way to spot Shepherd's purse is by the shape of its fruit. Look closely at the stem, and you will see flat fruits lined up that look like upside-down hearts.
This shape looks just like the plectrum used to play the shamisen. People say it got the name Penpen-gusa because a shamisen makes a "pen-pen" sound.
The fruit shape is also compared to a gunbai. That is the fan a sumo referee holds! The top edge dips down a little, and the bottom comes to a point. If you trace the shape on your coloring page, you will see why!

Spin it around, and it makes a sound

Shepherd's purse is a plant that makes sounds! Here is how to do it.
First, pick a stem with lots of seedpods. Next, gently pull each seedpod stem down one by one. The tiny stem will tear, and the seedpod will hang by just a little skin. Do this for all the seedpods.
Then, put the main stem between your palms and spin it back and forth like a pellet drum. The hanging seedpods will bump into each other and make a soft rattling sound.
This is the most fun way to play with Shepherd's purse. When you finish your coloring page, be sure to try it with a real plant!

The flowers are white and have 4 petals

At the very top of the stem, small white flowers bloom in clusters. There are 4 petals, and they make the shape of a cross.
They are about 3 millimeters across. They are very small, so you have to squat down and look close to see their shape.
The fun part is the order they bloom. They bloom from the bottom to the top, so you can see flowers at the top and fruit at the bottom. That means you can see both flowers and fruit on the same stem at the same time. They bloom from spring to summer (March to July).

One of the Seven Spring Herbs

Shepherd's purse is one of the Seven Herbs of Spring. It is one of the seven plants in the spring herb porridge people eat on January 7th.
We eat the young leaves that lie flat on the ground before the stems grow up. Long ago, it was an important food in winter when there were few vegetables.
Maybe you have tried it in porridge before. That wild plant growing in your schoolyard is actually in the spring herb porridge!

Sticking close to the ground, it lives through the winter

Shepherd's purse seeds sprout in the autumn. During the winter, they don't grow stems, but spend their time spreading their leaves in a circle flat against the ground. This shape is called a rosette.
They stay flat on the ground because it keeps them out of the wind and lets them get heat from the dirt. It is a smart shape for surviving the cold.
The jagged leaves near the bottom of the coloring page show this rosette. When it gets warm in the spring, a stem shoots right up from the middle of it!

The seed pods stay white, with just green edges

The seed pods of Shepherd's purse are light yellow-green. Since the color is very light, it looks pretty if you leave the inside white and just trace the edges in green.
There are a lot of seed pods, so if you color them all dark, your picture will look too heavy. Color the big pods at the bottom a little darker, and the small pods at the top lighter. This shows that the pods at the top are younger!

The flowers are white. Leaving them blank works best

The flowers at the top are pure white, so leave them white without coloring. If you make just the middle of the flower light yellow, you can easily see that it has 4 petals.
The buds are light green. They gather in the center of the flower cluster, so if you color just that part green, the white flowers around them will really stand out.

The leaves at the bottom are dark green

The jagged leaves near the bottom are much darker green than the seed pods and flowers. If you color this part deeply, your whole picture will look nice and sharp.
The leaves have deep cuts, so color each section with care. It is okay to leave the gaps in the cuts white. Leaving them white helps show the shape of the leaves!

The stems get lighter as they go up

The stem is a deep green at the bottom, and becomes light yellow-green as it goes up. It is a little tricky to change the color along a single stem, but if you do it well, your Shepherd's purse will look like it is standing up tall.
In the second picture, there are many stems lined up, so we recommend changing the brightness of the green for each stem. This adds depth and makes it look like a real grassy field.

When you finish coloring, let's go make some sounds!

When you finish your coloring page, take this picture to the schoolyard. Look for Shepherd's purse using the drumstick-shaped seed pods as your guide!
When you find one, gently pull each pod stem downward so it hangs by a tiny thread. Then, hold the main stem between your hands and twist it back and forth. If it makes a jingling sound, you did it!

"Pen-pen" is the sound of a shamisen

The "pen-pen" in Shepherd's purse comes from the sound of playing a shamisen.
People say there are two reasons for this. First, the shape of the seed pod looks just like a shamisen pick. Second, if you spin the seed pods around, they make a sound.
Either way, this plant is definitely linked to the shamisen. Children long ago played the same game to make sounds, too!

There are 2 stories about its Japanese name

There are 2 fun stories about where the Japanese name "Nazuna" comes from.
The first story is "summerless leaf." Shepherd's purse blooms in early spring and dies in summer, so people called it a "leaf without summer."
The second story is "petting leaf." It means a flower so small and cute that you want to pet it.
No one knows which story is true, but the second one makes those tiny white flowers look even cuter!

Flowers and seed pods grow on the same stem

Shepherd's purse flowers bloom from the bottom to the top. So if you look up a stem from the bottom, here is what you will see!
At the very bottom are big seed pods. In the middle are small seed pods. And at the top are white flowers that just bloomed.
This means you can see time passing on just one stem! If you look from bottom to top, you can tell how many days the plant spent growing.

What "Not even Shepherd's purse will grow" means

Have you ever heard someone say, "That shop closed down, and now not even Shepherd's purse will grow there"? It means a place is so ruined that nothing is left.
Why do people use Shepherd's purse for this? It is because Shepherd's purse can grow even in very poor soil. If even Shepherd's purse cannot grow, things must be really bad!
So this saying actually praises how tough Shepherd's purse is!