Finding Flavor in the Weeds Randy Harris for The New York Times Dead nettle. Tama Matsuoka Wong has co-written a cookbook on foraged ingredients, inspired by some of the underappreciated plants on her New Jersey property. I know I'm not the only one who had chickweed growing like a deeply rooted carpet all over my vegetable garden this spring. And have you ever seen such huge leaves of dock this early in the season? They're Tough But You Knew It's a banner year for chickweed, said Lewis H. Ziska, a plant physiologist in the Crop Systems and Global Change Laboratory for the Department of Agriculture, in Beltsville, Md. And for Canada thistle, another scourge, which grew two to three times its normal size in plexiglass chambers with CO2 levels elevated to 700 parts per million. Even when sprayed with Roundup (glyphosate), the plants survived, due to their extra-vigorous roots. "Weeds are the ultimate beneficiaries of rapid change in the environment," said Mr. Ziska, the co-author of "Weed Biology and Climate Change," with Jeffrey S. Dukes. And this is an environment on steroids. Weeds can grow quickly and flower early, producing vast numbers of genetically diverse seed. So if conditions are dry, for example, seeds with drought tolerance germinate; if conditions are wet, other seeds flourish instead. A recent study by Steven J. Franks and other scientists showed that Brassica rapa, or field mustard, was able to develop drought tolerance within three generations. Mr. Ziska and others have also studied wild and cultivated rice under higher temperatures and elevated CO2. The wild rice grew taller and synchronized its flowering time with the cultivated rice, which had been genetically modified for herbicide resistance. The wild plants also had more flowers, pollen and seeds. The upshot was a rice field full of hybrid herbicide-resistant weeds, which could also sprout in surrounding areas. The qualities that make weeds bothersome could hold the key to crops that could thrive in the extreme conditions of climate change. "The ability of weeds to produce large numbers of genetically diverse seed may make them a good means to find - through forced selection - seed that may be drought- or temperature-tolerant, or more responsive to additional CO," Mr. Ziska said. Scores of weeds are thriving in Eastern gardens this year, thanks to the unusually warm winter and a roller coaster spring that has been hot one week, chilly the next, too dry then gloriously rainy. And as CO2 levels rise, some weeds are growing faster and bigger. A stand of Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) has taken root in the compost pile. Its jointed hollow stems are reminiscent of bamboo, but its tough oval leaves don't have that plant's feathery grace. The stinging nettles - which I actually planted from a five-inch clump dug from a friend's garden, because this ancient herb is full of nutrients - have grown into a five-foot-wide monster that flowered when I turned my back. It's now bristling with hairy stingers that become harmless when cooked, but you don't want to go near this plant without long sleeves and gloves. And once it blooms, in long, dripping tassels of greenish florets that turn to thousands of seeds, the leaves will develop cystoliths, or deposits of calcium carbonate, that can irritate the urinary tract. "But you can mow it down and the leaves will come back," Tama Matsuoka Wong told me recently, standing in the middle of her own weed-filled garden in North Flemington, N.J. Ms. Wong, a financial services lawyer who somehow manages to look elegant in muddy rubber boots, explained how she just snaps the tender young leaves off the top of the plants (wearing gloves, of course) and tosses them into boiling water. She takes them out after a few minutes, when they have wilted but are still bright green. "Nettles have a deep herbal kind of celery-mint flavor," she said. We like them on pizza or in risotto. Ms. Wong, 54, has given up fighting her weeds. Instead, she eats most of them. Her new book, "Foraged Flavor: Finding Fabulous Ingredients in Your Backyard or Farmer's Market," co-written with Eddy Leroux, the chef de cuisine at Daniel, in Manhattan, isn't just a collection of gourmet recipes for weeds and other unappreciated plants. Published by Clarkson Potter, it goes on sale this month, just in time to guide gardeners interested in taking another look at all those weeds crowding out their beet and carrot seedlings. Last week, as I weeded my potatoes, I actually found myself wishing for more dock so that I could harvest enough tender leaves to chop up for pasta. Dock is packed with vitamins and minerals, but only a starving person would think of eating the leathery leaves. Unless they had just visited Ms. Wong. She instructed me to take only the youngest leaves in the center of the plant. Cooked, it tastes a bit like kale, she said. When I got back home, I started picking every little dock leaf I could find, to make a pasta dish she had raved about. My attitude about chickweed had changed, too. Instead of digging it up and trundling it off to the compost pile, I was shearing off the tender tops for an appetizer. "That grassy taste needs the kick of Gorgonzola," Ms. Wong had told me. If you can see a weed as food, everything changes. "In Japan, chickweed is celebrated as hakobe, one of the seven wild herbs of spring," said Ms. Wong, who is so enamored of weeds she hasn't planted her vegetable garden this year. "I don't even go to the farmers" market anymore, because these taste so much better," she said. The wild flavors grow on you. TRAINED at Harvard Law School, Ms. Wong still consults for clients on Wall Street, but her passion is foraging for Daniel, where Mr. Leroux experiments with her weeds in dishes that suit his palate. "It's a little relaxation from the trading floor, pure creativity," she said. Here are these plants people are spraying and stomping on and throwing out, and Eddy has such respect for them. "Foraged Flavor" is not a latter-day "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" or an imitation of one of those eating-from-the-wild books by "Wildman" Steve Brill, the herbalist Swamp Fox of the New York park system. "I didn't want to eat just survival foods," Ms. Wong said. Those recipes aren't exciting to me.