While the wild plant community is still slowly waking up from winter dormancy, there’s one urbanite who’s wide awake, in full flower, and ready to be flung on your dinner plate. Hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) is one of the first weeds of spring, pictured here near a vegetable garden on First Light Lane in Truro.

Favoring disturbed sites like driveways and garden beds and growing whenever the conditions are right, hairy bittercress can germinate in the fall, bide winter as an evergreen, and then race to be the first flower of spring. A non-native weed but also a salad green, hairy bittercress has a pleasant taste, like a mild arugula. Whether you weed it or eat it, pulling it now will save you from going ballistic later: brushing the ripened seed pods activates a tripwire dispersal mechanism that flings hundreds of seeds in every direction, an impressive if infuriating display. Cardamine hirsuta has a 12-week life cycle, so expect a second course of projectile salad later in the year.