Nutritious weed for humans (salads) and chickens (chickenfood).
Each plant is capable of producing 500 to 15000 seeds. An aggressive spreader, especially in gardens and yards as winter turns into spring.

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Stellaria media, common chickweed, is a cool-season annual plant often eaten by chickens. It is commonly called Chickenwort, Craches, Maruns, Winterweed. The plant germinates in fall or late winter and then forms large mats of foliage. Flowers are small and white, followed quickly by the seed pods. This plant flowers and sets seed at the same time.

Stellaria media is edible and nutritious. It is used raw in salads as well as cooked and as a pot herb in many parts of the world.

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Stellaria media is native to Europe but has naturalized throughout many areas here in North America. Common Chickweed grows only 3 to 7 inches high and is a weak-stemmed plant with erect or ascending freely branching stems, rooting at the nodes. Leaves of 1/2 to 1 1/4 inches in length appear opposite on the stem with the upper leaves clasping the stem and lower leaves attached by short thin stalks that are often covered in tiny hairs. The star-shaped, deeply divided white flowers are 1/4 inch wide and are borne singly at the ends of tiny stalks. The plant can display numerous flowers at the same time, giving the appearance of many tiny stars. Common Chickweed has a shallow, fibrous root system.

This invasive annual is an aggressive weed in both wet and dry soils and is found in disturbed sites, lawns, and turf grasses.

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