March 12, 2013 -- hairy bittercress

It's funny, but the first photos I took of this showed only a whitish vase against a brownish background. I had to enhance the photo to make the hairy bittercress flowers and foliage even show up. This is a delicate, beautiful, edible weed that is as ubiquitous as daffodils in a mid-Atlantic spring. It's also edible (if I remember correctly, Gertrude Jekyll added it to butter sandwiches in England), and it's the source of those jet-propelled seeds that can put an eye out of commission when you're weeding later in spring.