Weed identification: "fake sweet potato"

[macmex]

Any idea what this is? It's too cool for it to be a volunteer sweet potato or a sweet potato from seed. Besides that, I haven't had any sweet potatoes in this garden for several years.

Morning glory? It just doesn't look quite right for that.

[june]

Sure does look like sweet potato.  Morning glories have a tiny fuzz (not slick) on the leaf surface.  Only thing else I can think of is bind weed, but its leaves are small and not purple.    Better save it for awhile.

[macmex]

Thanks June. I will let it be and report back.

[june]

George, I just found a 'mystery plant' as well.  Pretty sure mystery is solved.  I think they are 'bind weed'.  Look back at your photo...the little leaf sticking out to the right is one of the original cotyledons....not in the ipomoea family...not morning glory, not sweet potato...Here is mine.

[june]

...And here are the cotyledons.

[macmex]

Bet that's it. Makes sense.

[chrysanthemum]

Ugh. I really hate bindweed. We had it in Virginia on a chain link fence between our property and a neighbors. It looks like we have it here, too, sadly.

[john]

Hi George. I agree, it's bindweed or wild buckwheat. They are a big problem for me. Field bindweed is especially bad in my blueberries and will nearly cover the bushes in short order. If you don't have a lot of bindweed yet I would try to nip it in the bud now before it get's too bad. They have extensive perennial roots which are hard to fish out of the ground and it takes persistence to eradicate once established.

[heavyhitterokra]

Anytime you kill a 1" inch weed, it never grows up to be a 1' foot weed.

[chrysanthemum]

While I think bindweed is a good guess for the plant pictured above, I just came across another invasive possibility: houttuynia or chameleon plant. There are some pretty pictures of a variegated type online, but apparently it can often revert to its green form. I’m beginning to think that what sprang up in a shady area of our landscape last year (during an exceptionally rainy summer) may be houttuynia. Ours had a horrible smell that was somewhat like spoiled shrimp. We pulled huge amounts of it off bushes and trees and the ground, but, of course, it’s coming back but much less vigorously so far in this drought. It seems to grow and spread just like bindweed.

Here are two different articles I found on it.  Comments about the smell are what make me wonder if it’s the plant I have that tried to take over one corner of our property last year.

www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjKrOez7M_3AhXDQjABHZzcCmQQFnoECCYQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fawaytogarden.com%2Fwhy-wont-this-plant-die%2Fcomment-page-8%2F&usg=AOvVaw1xPmXZHyC8hS-xKZoZeDJC



gardeningandgardens.blogspot.com/2012/05/beware-of-this-chameleon-plant.html

[heavyhitterokra]

chrysanthemum,

That was an excellent article. I'm pretty sure my wife has that very same plant in her front flowerbed here too. She planted it there because nothing would grow on the Northside of our house. Now, it is has taken over her flowerbed and is attempting to take over the world!

It's not the same as bind weed.  Bindweed is spindly and grows up in a twining fashion, choking out neighboring plants by strangulation.  Chameleon plants spread horizontally, choking out neighboring plants by the shear numbers of their broad leaves, blocking out all sunlight beneath them.

This invasive plant should be against the law to sell in garden centers. Maybe, due to your posting the article above here, someone will read it and not become a victim of this weed's invasive nature.

Beware the Chameleon plant!

[chrysanthemum]

I’m sorry to hear that you have it, heavyhitterokra.

I’ll have to look at ours more this spring. I thought it was field bindweed last year. It grew super-long vines all over the ground, but in many places it wasn’t super leafy, just vining. It was growing up fences into trees and over bushes. I told my husband while I was standing in a patch of it that I felt like I was in some sort of horror movie where the plant was going to come alive and strangle me. What I remember was the horrible smell, and that I didn’t have any recollection of with our previous experience with bindweed. It seems that the chameleon plant is sometimes called “fish mint” because some varieties have a really unpleasant odor.

I don’t recall seeing any flowers last year. That would be a good identifier.

macmex, whether yours is bindweed or chameleon plant, I hope it’s already gone.

[john]

Houttuynia does smell bad, I think smell is often an underrated way to help in plant Identification. I have a hard time with the smell of lovage. Some people love it others hate it. Cilantro is another one that people either hate it or love it.

[macmex]

The plant in my garden was bindweed. I've pulled a number of them so far.