Do you have any sort of Mimulus/monkey flower growing in your area? It often has a yellow flower a bit like a squashed snapdragon. Lives in dampish places. Juicy. Spreads across the top of the ground and has thick greeny-white hairy roots coming directly from the stems into the ground. (At least - the variety I'm familiar with does.) Dies back over winter and pops back in spring. Does really well in river shingle.

If that sounds likely you'd have to check on your local sort. Mine can be dug up/weeded out, though it's patient work. Obviously - never let it go to seed - or even set flowers.

Thanks. I don't *think* that's what this is, at least judging by some of the photos I found on Google.
Although the term juicy you used - that's how I would describe the stems on these - thick, almost translucent & juicy looking.

I'll try to get some more photos. I keep pulling it out of course, but maybe I'll also let a small patch grow tall to see what it looks like when mature. We have a few acres of land, mostly woods, & it's hard to stay on top of some of it.

Ah, translucent stems? Now your talking! Try Clearweed, Pilea pumila. If that's it, though, it should be very easy to pull up, and they won't regrow. However, new ones can come up from seed very fast, and they make a LOT of seed, so it can take a while to clear out an infestation. I've never seen them in a flower bed, either, just woody areas, so I could be very wrong. It's just the only one I know with trancluscent stems!

I do believe that's it! Thanks!

We've not had this before so I am AMAZED at how it is everywhere on our property this year. Yes, it pulls out very easily, just grows back so fast.
It is mostly in the wood lines, under pine trees, rhodies etc, but yes, in my flower beds too - mostly the shaded beds but also any remotely shaded part of my bright sun gardens.

I just read it's part of the nettle family, and amazingly for the first time this year I am finding lot of stinging nettles too. Makes me wonder if we got a few "bad" seed-infested batches of compost from the garden center this year.