Beneficial weed

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Beneficial weeds are various plants not necessarily considered domesticated, but which nonetheless have some companion plant effect, or else are edible, including a great many wildflowers, but also including many weeds which people are wont to generically kill or poison, without realizing the benefit of that plant.

Many of these are plants which are actually good to keep in one's garden, at the very least recognizing and not pulling them when they spontaneously grow near vegetables or flowers which will benefit from their appearance.

Many beneficial weeds attract parasitic insects away from other crops, sometimes even poisoning those insects and thus ending their threat entirely. For example; several kinds of weed will be devastated by japanese beetles while normally attacked vegetables nearby go completely ignored.

Some others:

lock nutrients into the soil
repel insects and other pests through their smell
are unpleasant to small animals, because of their spines or other featues
some plants seem to subtly change the flavor of other plants around them.
plants which grow on different levels in the same space, perhaps providing ground cover or working as a trellis for another plant
some weeds repel plants or fungi, through chemical means
attracts or is inhabited by insects or other organisms which benefit plants, as with ladybugs or some "good nematodes"
one plant type of plant may serve as a wind break, or shade from noonday sun, for another
plants which attract pests away from others

Some are edible. This list of edible flowers includes many wildflowers which are considered weeds when not planted intentionally.

Indeed, another kind of beneficial weed is any decorative wildflower which is yanked out or cut when young, so its actual identity is never recognized by the gardener or yard keeper.

Dandelion is a relatively well-known example of an edible weed.