Circaea canadensis, Eastern Enchanter's Nightshade. Good luck ripping it out. The thing will have rizomes that make it an intractible weed in cultivated situations.

lol....

central ny was good enough..

anything that grows that fast.. and has such nondescript flowers.. in such numbers.. just has to be a weed.. not to mention the fact it pops up the the middle of an iris patch..

try to pull it out... water heavily first to moisten the soil... but if you fail.. you have to dig up iris every few years anyway.. so just do the job right..

but dont give it too much longer to root in deeply.;..

ken

yikes. Naturally it would be something nasty. lol! I'll go try to rip it out now! Thank you, floral and Ken!

It produces white roots which are really hard to get out. Pulling is not enough. It (or rather the European version, C lutetiana) and bindweed are the only two plants I have ever used herbicide on.

I've been growing Circaea canadensis for a few years, and I haven't seen any agressive spread from rhyzomes. I transplanted a few this year, and the root systems were small. It does spread agressively by seeds. I'm useing it to combat Glechoma hederacea and other agressive and invasive weeds. The native version will give way to other taller natives, in a woodland situation. It's similar to Prunella vulgaris, in that it also spreads agressively by seeds, and it prefers to grow in the same settings.

That has not been my experience. I believe that C canadensis was long believed to be a supspecies of C lutetiana, so I assume it behaves the same way. On my allotment C lutetiana is one of the worst weeds and It most certainly spreads via the white roots. Any fragment can regrow. I was digging it out by the handful only today. Prunella vulgaris, which I also get, is not comparable in difficulty in my experience and over here the two do not occupy the same habitat. In a woodland situation Circeae is amenable and lives modestly in a plant community. In a cultivated garden it goes mad. The RHS agrees. Enchanter's nightshade / RHS Gardening

I have C alpina growing in my native woodland garden, and I’ve never thought of it as a pest. It just fills in around all the larger things and has lovely little white flowers in the spring. Mine goes dormant in the summer heat and drought sometime at the end of June every year, only to come up again in the spring, of course. Does C canadense go summer dormant?

I missed the new comments while I was out mowing and gardening, so I've already pulled them. I literally braced myself to get ready to tug the first one with all my might to get it out of the ground, and then was shocked that it popped out easily! They all popped out easily and there were more than I realized (I haven't weeded this area yet this year!).

I took a pic -- those are all long white/pink roots and I assume this means that I got it all early enough.

Pretty sure you'll be seeing it again. There will almost certainly be roots that broke off and remain in the soil. I emphasise that in the wild it is no problem at all. But in a cultivateed bed, with no competition is spreads and spreads.

It’s not exactly a cultivated bed… left by the PO, it’s an ages old row of bearded iris that runs along the edge of the back porch and it gets clobbered with water off the roof whenever it rains. :)

I had a tiny vine of Clematis virginiana show up about 5 years ago…. since it’s native and pretty, I let it grow and then I stupidly thought the seedheads were gorgeous. It goes like that. My yard is full of pretty and mostly aggressive things. I wish I knew then what I know now. lol!