Spring Foraging Guide: Common Chickweed
How a Little Star Staved Off Scurvy and So Much More
Its Latin name, stellaria media, means “little star,” a perfect description of chickweed. It is a soft, subtle spring herb. Its petals are so pint-sized and its leaves and stems are delicate. Chickweed is a spring ephemeral and is quite easy to identify, so you can quickly feel confident in foraging it. While this plant is not native to the United States, it has been naturalized and is not a threat to local ecosystems. It may be labeled as a nuisance for conventional gardeners, but if harvested and chopped down as mulch or composted, it is full of nutrients for creatures large and small. If you have chickens, it’s a highly nutritious food for them, and a way to cut feed costs, if only a little.
Identifying Chickweed
You can find chickweed in a variety of moist, partially shady environments. Though it germinates in fall, it doesn’t flower until spring. Throughout the winter, it develops its long-reaching stems and leaves. Here in the Ozarks, its flowers tend to manifest in the earliest moments of spring, when there is a slight chill, and the air begins to smell like spring. We have a shade garden where we grow perennial herbs, annual flowers, and vegetables under a tremendous old oak tree. Its border is lined with slowly decomposing logs where the chickweed has crept over and touches the mulched path. Chickweed will hang around until the heat of summer sets in.
A rich, green color emanates from chickweed’s leaves and stems. It forms a clump at the base and rests prostrate on the ground, trailing out as far as it can in all directions. Its leaves are oval to ovate (egg-shaped). They are opposite one another on short petioles (tiny stems that connect the base of the leaf to the main stem) along the stem. Toward the top of the stem, the leaves are bunched together. Chickweed’s stems have fine hairs in only one straight line, not all over. The green parts of the plant are super soft and succulent to the touch (and taste). The green stems meander all the way up to its tiny white flowers which are diminutive at less than a quarter of an inch in diameter. The flowers have 5 white double petals which look almost like 10 individual petals if you aren’t looking closely. These white petals rest on five pointed, green sepals.
Lookalikes
Star chickweed and mouse-ear chickweed are edible lookalikes to common chickweed, but scarlet pimpernel flower and plants in the spurge family are all toxic look-alikes and should never be consumed. The best way to tell common chickweed from the toxic others, aside from its physical characteristics, is to break the stem. If a milky-white substance seeps out, that is not common chickweed and is likely one of its toxic look-alikes. Star pimpernel has orange flowers, but up until the flowers bloom, the milky sap is the best test.
Edible Parts & Medicinal Properties
Important Note: As with many medicinal plants, it is not recommended to consume large quantities of chickweed at once. Please do not overharvest or forage from places you suspect may be sprayed with herbicides, insecticides, or other poisonous chemicals. Additionally, I am obviously not a physician. Though I will talk about potential contraindications of chickweed, please do not consume wild plants if you have any serious health conditions. It is not best practice to consume medicinal herbs while pregnant or breastfeeding.
All parts of chickweed are edible, are nutritious, and possess medicinal value. The whole plant can be eaten raw, tossed in a salad, or stir-fried. Its flavor is subtle and similar to lettuce, but its texture is like that of spinach or a more substantial leafy green. Chickweed contains a multitude of vitamins, including vitamins A, B complex, C, and D, as well as minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, and zinc. A study in the National Library of Medicine explains:
“The crude extracts and isolated compounds of S. media demonstrated significant pharmacological activities such as anti-hepatoma, anti-obesity, anticancer, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial and anxiolytic potentials. The plant has played remarkable drug discovery roles in conventional and modern medicine.”
Whether you are eating the fresh, tender leaves and flowers or taking drops of a tincture, chickweed can help with several ailments. It acts as an antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant. Taken internally, chickweed can be used in the following ways:
Alleviates chronic symptoms of respiratory distress while also fighting respiratory infections
Reduces inflammation
Acts as an expectorant and demulcent (helps to clear mucus and congestion)
Supports healthy thyroid function
Boosts metabolism
Increases absorption of nutrients in the digestive tract
Balances gut bacteria
Supports healthy weight loss, including loss of body and liver fat (this is according to a study done only on mice, in which a reduction of body and liver fat was attributed to the delayed absorption of dietary fats and carbs in the intestines as a result of the digestive-inhibiting enzymes in the chickweed)
Supports the kidneys by acting as a diuretic
When used topically, chickweed has cooling, soothing properties. It is commonly used as an herbal remedy for rheumatism, arthritis, menstrual cramps, and other inflammation issues. It can also help with conditions like eczema, psoriasis, minor rashes, cuts, and insect bites. Used in a compress, it can soothe issues with varicose veins and hemorrhoids. To use chickweed topically, it can be made into a salve which combines oil infused with the plant with beeswax, a poultice which is to lay the moist plant matter directly onto the skin and cover it with a cloth, or you can infuse it into oil and use that oil as an ingredient in lotion or skin balm.
There aren’t many populations who shouldn’t consume chickweed, but there are a couple of notable cautions. Due to the strength of tinctures, people taking blood pressure lowering medications should not ingest chickweed tinctures. Chickweed has been known to lower blood pressure, so combining the strength of a tincture with the strength of prescription drugs is not a good idea. Other than that, children and pregnant or breastfeeding adults should also not use chickweed in tincture form. However, eating a few sprigs of the plant will not cause harm.
Folklore
Chickweed has been referred to as “maiden wort” by herbalist Susun Weed. This is in reference to the maiden archetype, which brings to mind youth, vibrance, and tenacity, all qualities of this herbaceous plant. In its native Europe, it is symbolic of romantic love and attraction. It was believed that if you carried a sprig of chickweed on your person, you would attract a lover. The other side of that, metaphorically and literally speaking, is its persistence. Once it is established, it returns season after season (so you may be stuck with that lover you’re trying to attract). The manner in which chickweed grows prolifically out from a connected center provides a visual representation of togetherness, connectedness, and community. European folklore traditions also hold chickweed in high regard for its symbolic ability to soothe anger and tensions in familial relationships.
Sailors added chickweed vinegar to their restrictive diets of meat and biscuits to treat scurvy, due to the plant’s high vitamin C content. Preserving the plant and its nutrients in vinegar was a clever way to transport it on long sea voyages.
Recipes
The recipe possibilities for chickweed are many. It is a great little snack to grab on a hike to just chew on, but it’s not a good idea to eat too much of it raw. That can cause an upset stomach. You can boil it lightly and have it as a side in a meal or toss some fresh leaves into a salad. You can craft an infused oil as previously mentioned (just make sure to dry it out thoroughly first because chickweed has a high water content). You can find a very simple recipe for chickweed pesto here.
An Empowering Ephemeral
Chickweed grows prolifically across the eastern US and across the world. As a spring ephemeral, it does not threaten gardens or native plants because it only lasts a short time— and how incredible is it that an herb filled with such high levels of vitamin C and zinc grows throughout the winter when its properties are most needed? Being aware of seasonal plant allies can help us feel a bit more connected to nature’s cyclical rhythm. By starting to identify these more obvious forageable plant allies, we can hopefully build up a repository of wild plant knowledge. Maybe that knowledge will empower us to get out there and eat more plants as well as discourage the feckless eradication of spring “weeds”.
Warmly/Fervently,
Allyson