shepherd's purse

The Emissary(written by Yoko Tawada) を読み始めました。
話の中に面白い名前の植物が出てきました。

From sidewalk cracks stalks of shepherd's purse grew straight up, six feet high. Now that human beings had disappeared from this urban center, the cherry trees that had once stood demurely beside sidewalks, slender as brooms, had grown thicker around the trunk, their branches spreading boldly out in all four directions, their luxuriant green afros swaying gently back and forth in the breeze.
植物名は英英辞書で見てもピンとこない場合が多いのですが、一応辞書で "shepherd's purse" を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: A widely distributed white-flowered weed of the cabbage family, with triangular or heart-shaped seedpods.: That food consists of various seeds - including grasses, alfalfa, nettles, thistles, shepherd's purse and cranesbill - as well as grain stolen from area farms.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a white-flowered weedy annual herb (Capsella bursa-pastoris) of the mustard family with flat heart-shaped pods
話の舞台は日本だし、"triangular or heart-shaped seedpods" で食用にもなる様なので春の七草のナズナ、俗称ぺんぺん草かなと思いますが、辞書には写真がないので 'picture' も加えてグーグル検索するとナズナの写真が出てきました。ペンペン草が英語では "shepherd's purse" とは面白いですね。