Purslane

Portulaca oleracea

Portulacaceae

The lemony succulent in the cracks of the driveway — a salad weed richer in omega-3 than most garden greens.

Culinary succulent weed. Identify the yellow-flowered Portulaca, not ornamental moss roses you spray.

Parts used: Leaf · Stem · Tips
Traditional notes: Salad green · Traditional cooling food · Summer pot-herb
Grow · USDA 6b: Warm-season annual. Frost ends it. Surface-sow in heat, or stop pulling the volunteers. In work: May · Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep
Harvest: Tips before they yellow. Cut-and-come.

The plant you were weeding is the crop.
Golden cultivars are milder.
A driveway harvest needs an unsprayed driveway.

Safety

Kidney-stone oxalate caution in huge amounts Herbicide edges

Lore

Pliny already called it a pot-herb. Thoreau ate it at Walden and wrote that he made a satisfactory dinner of it. Modern nutritionists rediscovered what village kitchens never forgot: this ‘weed’ carries more alpha-linolenic acid than most greens we plant on purpose.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.