A couple of patches are coming up in the front yard right now. The emerging shoots are stiff.

Tee: I wonder if it could be Persicaria of some sort?

edited to correct typo and add a link:

ATP database pic's: Fleece Flower (Persicaria microcephala 'Red Dragon')


http://www.google.com/search?q...

Thanks, Lin. I do have Persicaria around so that might be a possibility. These patches look like a seed pod or seed head dropped there and a bunch of the seeds germinated. The shoots/stems are not herbaceous though. They are stiff but not rigid. I can press them down without breaking and they spring back. That's about all I can tell at this point. I'm trying to decide what to do with these before the grass begins growing in earnest and these get too much bigger.

Tee: Disregard my post ... looking closer the plant in question doesn't appear to be Persicaria. Your plant sure looks familiar ... I swear I had the same stuff or something very similar sprouting up in the lawn at my old house. I thought I had it ID'd but can't for the life of me remember the name. I've gone through all my photo's in my "weed" folder and can't find it. It may have been in my plant photo's that I lost when my laptop crashed a year or so ago. Hopefully someone will come along and recognize it but I will continue to rack my brain and try to remember the one I had ... may not even be close but it sure looks like it and I remember the new shoots being kind of stiff, not soft at all. I used to mow it down so I never saw any blooms.

Thanks very much. Got to begin somewhere. I can't tell if it's a weed or something useful that I can transplant.

I think you should dig and pot some of it in a container and see what you get.

I'll definitely do that if I can't ID it.

OK, Lin, I think I've got it. It's Winter Creeper, I believe. I went out to look around and finally thought to look UP at the tall vine of it growing up one of the maple trees. So it has dropped its seeds from on high and that's where they are coming from. They form a thicket first and some will vine if they can find something to attach to like the tree. Mystery solved. Well, at least it isn't kudzu.

Aha! That's it ... Euonymus! http://garden.org/plants/brows...

Looks a lot like E. coloratus: http://www.google.com/search?q...

Any chance it could be an amaranthus?

Karen

Euonymus fortunei 'Coloratus' certainly does match...

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/horticu...

http://www.monrovia.com/plant-...

Thanks, Janet and Karen too. I do believe it's the Winter Creeper Euonymous. At first I thought it was going to be purple Barberry since I have a very large bush out there, but the leaves aren't right. I think the guilty party is the Euonymous.