This plant is taking over...

This plant has been taking over my sister's backyard for some time. This is the first time I've seen it in her veggie patch which I've been tasked with weeding.

Hopefully my fellow permies will have some idea what it is?



I thought this was a nifty trick to make it harder for me to get the roots out - the invasive grass and the invasive forb have grown their roots together! I saw this more than once while working on this project today.

I don't have a clue but my first thought was an Elm Tree seedling ....

My first pass guess is ground elder, aka goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria).  If confirmed, do consider eating some.

My guess is ground elder too. It is taking over my garden also - spreads from tiny root stolons, so very difficult to get rid of. Oh dear!!!


It does have it's uses.....I like it as a cordial, but my husband dislikes anything in the parsnip/celery/angelica line so I don't use it much. this thread seems to have some useful information.

Yes, my first thought was ground elder, too. It's not related to elderberry, though the leaves can look similar.

Wikipedia says this:

The tender leaves can be utilized as a spring leaf vegetable akin to spinach, having been used thus since antiquity. It is commonly used for soup. Young leaves are preferred as a pot herb. It is best picked from when it appears (as early as February in the UK and other parts of northern Europe) to just before it flowers (May to June). If it is picked after this point it tastes pungent and has a laxative effect. However, it can be stopped from flowering by pinching out the flowers, ensuring the plant remains edible if used more sparingly as a pot herb.

It also had a history as a medicinal herb to treat gout and arthritis, applied in hot wraps externally upon boiling both leaves and roots together. Ingested, the leaves have a diuretic effect and act as a mild sedative.[medical citation needed] Its use as a medicinal herb has largely declined.

As it's a member of the wild carrot family which has some toxic members, you do need to be sure of the ID before eating it.

OK, you guys seem to have nailed the green parts - the stem is definitely ridged, although it's not as obviously hollow.

However, none of the pictures of the roots that showed up under g---le show the root structure I found in the area.

So... since it's in the carrot family, a root like that makes sense to me, but can anyone confirm it? She clearly has more than one spreading, unidentified, forb and a number of baby trees in the area, so that may not be helping me sort things out.

Alas, I already pulled a Walnut (way too close to the building to leave it) several Mulberry (why do they insist on growing in the crack between the driveway and the foundation?), and two Quaking Aspen (grows too fast for the location). Sigh... Sorry baby trees, but your seed spreaders (AKA squirrels and birds) choose the wrong locations for you to live happy lives.

Maybe wild parsnip is similar?

I have the same issue with baby trees I would love, if only they'd grow where I want them to! Breaks my heart to pull them up!

Ah, I was assuming that the grass roots were the invasive forb's root....so it is more of a tap root than a creeping root? Could it be Alexanders?
https://totallywilduk.co.uk/2020/04/27/identify-alexanders/

Ooh, interesting! Thank you, Nancy! I think I may have alexanders in my Bulgarian garden!

If the flowers are yellow then I would guess golden alexanders of some sort. They look very similar to goutweed except that they are yellow and earlier flower buds (the buds are out first thing in spring).

Maybe honewort (Cryptotaenia)?

Aegopodium podagraria springs to mind, but do i know what American invasives exist, no! So probably not this. But what would be a helpful thing to say is can you send a picture of how it looks in the garden?

I'd like to reiterate that there are some spectacularly toxic members of the carrot family, so really really make sure of the ID before eating any of it. One famous poison in the family is hemlock. Another dramatic one is giant hogweed, Heracleum mantegazzianum, whose sap makes your skin so photosensitive that if the sap gets on your skin (eg while cutting or pulling it) and then sun hits your skin, you can get painful blisters that last for ages.

Another vote for ground elder. Not so much my vote... but that is what the "Picture This" app guesses that it is :)

Ground elder. I've recently been picking some, so I'm dead familiar! It was coming into flower. Alexanders has more leaflets, has flowered and its seeds are still green (soon be black, and smelling of pepper when rubbed).
Ground elder has a delightful herby smell when picked.

Is there a chance of digging up some more to check that there are no goutweed running roots? It might be that some of them—different varieties, or in different environments—behave differently. Supposedly silverweed is like this. And in Europe Norway Maple is supposed to be an understory tree—here they get quite big. And do they smell like goutweed too, I wonder?

For clarity if anyone doesn’t know the plant—ground elder, goutweed, bishopweed, bishop’s elder—all are different names for one plant: Aegopodium podagraria in Latin terminology. They are eaten as a spring green and especially good are the young, still curled up leaves. In a good patch you could pick for half an hour and end up with pounds of young tender greens. They are especially good sautéed, one of the many, many wild greens that is “like spinach but better” (to me at least). Easy to grow to the point of being invasive (ask anyone in the valley here. They are more prolific, though less overwhelming, than knotweed—no riverside is untouched!) When you see them in cultivated settings, they often are variegated with white patches. These varieties are apparently less invasive.

Now that it has been identified as Aegopodium podograria, I have some info on how to get rid of it.  The roots run for a very long way, and all parts of the root must be removed or it will sprout again from the remaining root pieces. Here is the trick to getting rid of it: If you cover it with 4-6 inches of wood chips, the roots will migrate up close to the surface of the wood chips after a few months. Once that happens, you can easily pull 20 feet of root at a time up through the wood chips. I have successfully removed this plant from a client's garden this way.

One can also sheet mulch the area if nothing needs to be saved there.

Also, like any variegated plant, sometimes the variegated version of this plant, which is frequently planted in gardens, will revert to the plain green form. And yes indeed, once they do that, they take over.  So if you have an variegated bishop's weed, keep an eye on it and quickly dig out any plants that revert to plain green.

Yes, this plant is ground elder.
In german language :giersch
And the grass is quackgrass
german: Quecke

To me it looks like  Aegopodium podagraria (which has many names in English) more than it looks like  Smyrnium olusatrum (mostly called Alexanders in English). The root on the photo though is too thick to be that of the Aegopodium, might be of something else growing nearby?

Diane Emerson wrote:Now that it has been identified as Aegopodium podograria, I have some info on how to get rid of it. ...

Only way I know to get rid of it: harvest all leaves in early Spring, when they are nice and tender. Nice to eat in soup or like spinach.
Go on picking all leaves, do not let any of them grow! The plant will get exhausted, can not go on growing because no photosynthesis without leaves! This takes a lot of time and effort, but it works.

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:The root on the photo though is too thick to be that of the Aegopodium, might be of something else growing nearby?

This is my suspicion. Unfortunately, I was too overwhelmed with higher priorities to try an dig up another area to compare the roots. This is why they always say to double check when trying some new, supposedly edible plant!

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Diane Emerson wrote:Now that it has been identified as Aegopodium podograria, I have some info on how to get rid of it. ...

Only way I know to get rid of it: harvest all leaves in early Spring, when they are nice and tender. Nice to eat in soup or like spinach.
Go on picking all leaves, do not let any of them grow! The plant will get exhausted, can not go on growing because no photosynthesis without leaves! This takes a lot of time and effort, but it works.

... I heard of someone enjoyed eating it so much, he exterminated it. He was upset!

Anthony Powell wrote:

Inge Leonora-den Ouden wrote:

Diane Emerson wrote:Now that it has been identified as Aegopodium podograria, I have some info on how to get rid of it. ...

Only way I know to get rid of it: harvest all leaves in early Spring, when they are nice and tender. Nice to eat in soup or like spinach.
Go on picking all leaves, do not let any of them grow! The plant will get exhausted, can not go on growing because no photosynthesis without leaves! This takes a lot of time and effort, but it works.

... I heard of someone enjoyed eating it so much, he exterminated it. He was upset!

I did too, it doesn't grow in my garden anymore, but still plenty 'in the wild' nearby.