Chickweed is the tender leaves and stems of Stellaria media, a low, sprawling annual of the carnation family and one of the most common edible weeds in the world. It grows as a soft green tangle of slender stems bearing small, oval, pointed leaves and tiny white star-shaped flowers, springing up in gardens, fields and waste ground almost year-round. The flavour is mild, fresh and green with a distinct sweet, pea-like or young-corn note and none of the bitterness of many wild greens, which makes it one of the friendliest foraged plants for the raw salad bowl. It is eaten raw in salads and sandwiches, blended into pesto and green sauces, folded into egg dishes, or wilted briefly like spinach; in Japan it is hakobera, one of the seven herbs of spring gathered for the ceremonial rice porridge nanakusa-gayu.