Plantain, many people will curse it as it pushes its way up between the pavement slabs, most drives will have a few growing on them and it grows abundantly in many a park.
This is also probably the first plant my kids learned to recognise because of how useful it is.

Plantain, Latin name Plantago, is common all over the world. It has about 200 subspecies and here in my part of the world there are 2 that I commonly see. Plantago major and plantago minor. major has large wide oval shaped leaves whereas minor has long pointed slender leaves. for boths types the leaves are ribbed and if you pull a leave of you will see a lot of strings from the end you pulled. They have long flowerstalks with tiny white flowers that turn brown when finished flowering. For a fairly extensive list on all the different types have a look at this wiki listing

Plantain is an astringent, anti-toxic, antimicrobal, anti histamine, anti-inflamatory as wel as demulcent, expectorant diuretic and styptic. So you can see why I think this is a weed you need!

My boys learned early on that chewing this baby up and spitting it onto an area mother nettle had stung would quickly relieve the violent sting. When they come in with a splinter (again lol!) we go out and find some plantain, chew it up and put it on the splinter. I then wrap a bandage around the area and leave it until bedtime at which point I unwrap it check to see if the splinter is out or far enough out for me to get it in a way that doesn't hurt. If not I get some fresh plantain and do the same again until morning, it usually doesn't take more than a day for a splinter to come out. We use it on all sorts of stings and blisters. I turn it into a cream for its antiseptic properties.

Herbal roots has an excellent ezine about plantain great for little herbalists to read and craft.

I hope you'll go out and meet this little weed!