a close up pic with a scale would be real helpful ....

i presume we arent talking about the tall one ...

location also usually helps us.. big city name ...

i cant really focus.. but im wondering about a lamium... of which there are good ones.. and not so good ones

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=lamium&iax=images&ia=images

ken

Just seeing this - I will get a better pic tomorrow when it is light out. Thank you!

I believe mariagrazia is referring to the taller plant with what looks like long stems of purple flowers...?

Something in the legume family?

Where is this located? It's important to know because different species of Desmodium grow in different states.

Can you focus on one of those little purple flowers in the foreground? I can’t see the structure at all. Assuming it’s Fabaceae?

Hylodesmum/ Desmodium pauciflorum

Looks good.

This genus makes seed pods that break into sections and stick to clothing and fur. An animal probably carried them into your Pachysandra patch. Or maybe a person did it?

I hope these pics help. I'm in zone 7a DC Metro. Thank you.

Yes. The Desmodium. Note the little pea flowers.

It seems pauciflorum has white flowers, so I'm thinking Desmodium glutinosum instead. I thought the leaf tips weren't acute enough to be glutinosum, but I can't think of any other species it could possibly be and I looked at all of them. I do see a couple leaves that are acute enough to be glutinosum. Hylodesmum nudiflorum is also similar except it has a noticeably longer terminal petiolule.

The seed pods seem distinctive...

If I were to ID based on the shape of the seed pods the plant would be pauciflorum, but it can't be pauciflorum which has white flowers. Google photos only has 1 or 2 photos, which isn't enough to express the overall seed pod shape of a species, and there has to be variability with the shape of the seed pods.🤯

Hmm, an image search shows there are a number with similarly shaped seedpods - glutinosum?