Yes, it is a rampant weed. I had an awful time getting rid of mine - the seeds spread far and wide. But it's so pretty! I also found it attracted plague numbers of grasshoppers, and once they'd demolished the perilla, they decimated the rest of my garden as well.

Culinary Uses: Used as a sweet-spicy flavouring for oriental dishes such as stirfries, with raw fish and sliced cucumber, in vegetable dishes, rice and soups. Red perilla is used as a red or pink food colouring, for pickling fruit and vegetables, especially preserved ginger and pickled sour plums, and as a dried powder to be used as a side dish with rice, as an ingredient in cake mixes and as a flavouring in beverages, as a condiment with sushimi. The sprouts can be used as a garnish. Green perilla, or oba, is used as a vegetable, for wrapping rice cake, in salads and tempura and goes well with sweet potato. The seeds of perilla are used to make oil and to flavour foods, especially pickles. Seeds (called egoma) can be used on baked goods, like sesame seeds. The flowerheads are used as a condiment. The oil from the seeds resembles Linseed oil and is used as a food flavouring in confectionery and sauces.

Medicinal Uses: Rich in vitamins and minerals. A tea made from the leaves can be used to treat fever, headache, coughs and colds, nausea, asthma, vomiting, constipation, food poisoning, allergic reactions or as a wash for sores and wounds. Has been used to treat cancer. Seed is used for cold phlegm conditions associated with copious phlegm and wheezing. It is also useful for treating constipation.

Usual Dosage: Seed or leaf in infusion: 3-9g.

Other Uses: It is highly decorative in the garden. Oil is often used to flavour dental products, paints, varnishes and in waterproof coatings on cloth. Dried seedheads are attractive in flower arrangements, potpourri and wreaths. The crushed plant is an effective insecticide.

Warning: Do not use the seeds if suffering from diarrhoea or a cough caused by weakness and deficiency.

i grew some intentionally a few years ago- fortunately i have managed to eradicate it at this point...

i'm on a dairy farm... large amounts of it can be toxic to cattle...

Look for "shiso" or "shiso recipe" at google for all sorts of culinary uses/recipes.

FataMorgana

I really dislike the smell (cannot say "fragrance" - LOL) and the taste so never use it for cooking. But it is a great accent in the flower bed! It's very similar in appearance to Purple Ruffles basil, but perilla is a MUCH more vigorous grower and therefore more useful visually. And yeah...I got my introduction to and start of perilla over 20 years ago from a jungle of little seedlings I saw growing next to the curb in the street that bordered my garden -- seeds must have washed downhill out of someone's yard up hill from me! Never had to worry about planting it ever again...but at least the seedlings are easily identified and dealt with. I have had worse plants self-sow in my beds!

Dill weed, Sweet Annie, groundcherries, Flower of The Hour... all once started can really take over but with some effort I grow them all & keep them in bounds pretty much & I do like to keep some of each every year growing. I shall keep an eye on perilla once the seed that I bought germinates... I have been forwarned! Thanks!

I Have been growing Shiso(perila) for three years. Or shall I say, it has been growing in my garden(lol).

Some call it invasive. I dont consider it INVASIVE because: ONE, it is an annual and cannot survive the winter.
TWO. if you don't let it blood and prevent the seeds from maturing, it has no chance to propagete.
THREE , it is easy to pull it out when small and young.
ABOUT FLAVOR: It has a distinct aroma, too strong for some people but I love it. It also mainains that aroma(to some extent) when dried. Among other uses, I use bigger leave to stuff, like grape leaves, bell peppers. I also chop younger leaves and mix with the stuffing mixture (Ground meat, rice,...). I have had both the red and green ones. The red one has much smaller leaves. But the taste and flavor is the same.

Once you plant it, you can always have it, grows very easily, reseeds itself every year, nice invasive plant that is easy to control (pull it up or use a weed killer).

Another variety of Perilla, is Fantasy, which is similar in appearance and cultivation to coleus, unlike regular Perilla, it's strictly ornamental, is non-drought tolerant and non-invasive as it doesn't reseed or come back (which is a shame because it's beautiful).

I love the taste and smell of green perilla, but unfortunately the last two years my plants developed some disease where they turned black and died, one after another in a row. BTW, Koreans soak the leaves in Soy Sauce and let them sit in the refrigerator for a month or so, makes a nice side dish to go with rice.
I have some seeds someone brought back from Korea but stored them in the freezer. I planted some and saw the birds having a feast in that area. Due to the rain that turns my clay soil into sticky mud its too muddy to go back where I planted them to see if any sprouted.

@Californian. shiso seeds are very tiny. When coated with clay and planted, I dont think the birds can find them.
You can also root shiso (in water or soil) and plant it.
I have done this myself with red ones couple of years ago.

I had it show up in my garden, and this year I'd call it an invasive. It's even taken up in the LAWN. I picked about 1,000 seedlings the other day when I was on the phone: I want to eradicate it.

Bzzzz
In between Washington DC and Richmond, VA

Saw this in a magazine and love it but as we live on a hay farm and I am reading it is toxic to livestock if baled into hay, I guess I'll have to rely on Coleus instead for dark red/black foliage.

You grow your herbs in your hay lot? ;)

Actually, I do hear that some folks in warmer locales have problems with this seeding outside the garden but if you want to grow it you could just be diligent in removing seed heads before they mature. If there are no seeds dropped or eaten by birds, it won't spread.

FataMorgana

Beefsteak Plant or Perilla frutescens It blooms late in the season and makes incredible quantities of seed. This is a lawn weed AWA pasture weed since livestock eat around it. Quoting from the Park Service's Plant Invaders of Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas:
...reported to be invasive in Washington DC, Ill, MD, MO,PA, TN, VA, WVa. It is well established along riparian areas of streams & rivers, gravel bars, forest edges, roadsides, railroad right-of-ways, pastures, fields and other disturbed areas that are in rich, alluvial or dry.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Invaders of the Mid-Atlantic

I have the red Perilla now established in a garden & it is pretty... haven't tried to use it yet but will cut some of the leaves before frost gets it to save to use later & let some go to seed. So far I think I can keep it in bounds ... easy to see the red color among my other green herbs & it is an annual so will winter kill .. I hope so?! Sweet Annie can become invasive also so I just let a couple of them (HUGE plants!)go to seed after I cut most of them to dry & use with lavender & rosemary & other fragrant herbs in 'fragrance' cotton sacks to hang. Any danger to eating this herb?

This is sometimes called "wild sesame seed". I have found the soil at my house does not make the leaves have as nice an aroma as the leaves I purchase at the Korean Market. It is not really sesame seed. In fact it is a variation of the Mint family with just larger leaves. I like to eat the leaves. Koreans make a food called Yaki-Mondu. It is a type of egg roll or dumpling. The stuffing is comprised of ground meat, cabbage, onions, a type of wheat grass, carrots and other vegetables like garlic, tofu, green onion, etc. Normally you wrap this in a mondu wrapper made with flour. However, we like to sometimes make it wrapped in the perilla leaves and lightly breaded in stir fry mix. In korea they eat them in different ways and sometimes soak them in soy/sesame to pickle them. Might try this in an exotic salad or just lightly battered and fried like a pumpkin blossom.

I had all mine die out one year when we had drought conditions. I planted about a package of the seeds and only got one plant to come up. Hopefully it will last long enough to go to seed. I think the seeds must prefer to be just thrown on the ground or dropped like they would if the plant was growing in the wild.

Perilla or Shiso (Japanese name) is very popular in asian dishes. It's an herb. Can be very pretty if you know how to take it before it flower and grow to seed. Its taste of combination licorice and a little grassy. I love the smell and it's great just thrown in salad or if you're into Asian food use it in the vietnamese summer rolls or use in phơ/vietnamese noodle soup like they use thai basil if you don't have thai basil around. I grow them for herb/eating purpose. Korean uses them in a lot of their cooking as well.