Winter Annual: Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta)

Hairy Bittercress is most often lumped together with general weeds, but it is in fact a useful plant!
This plant is arranged in a basal rosette of pinnate leaves with tiny, 4-petaled white flowers in clusters at their tops.
With slender, upright seed pods which explode when mature! The leaves are edible and plentiful for foragers a bit into winter. Excelent in salads or by itself, I would say its most similar to arugula in bitterness/texture. Don't fear the " hairy" part of the name, it comes from a small cluser of tiny "hairs" at the front or along the main stem of each leaflet. More than likely a measure to ensure moisture loss/for winter photosynthesis. The leaves contain a good amount of vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, beta-carotene, and antioxidants.

If you do simply need to remove these little ones from the garden bed remove them early so as not to burst the seed pods, they are simple to remove (light and delicate root structure) but fit right around a leafy green garden as mircogreens!

Thanks for reading/following, will hopefully do more in this style of plant id/info in the future! I'm very passionate about useful plants NOT being called weeds! Everything has there location and place in an ecosystem!