ID Plant: single-stem red-edged toothed leaf pairs

Holy_Genes

Hi, I was hoping for a 'twenty questions' plant identifier site on the web, but found nothing. Here's a picture of a plant that's now over waist high in its second year. I've been hanging on for it to flower to aid identification, but it just keeps growing. It's not successfully spreading through seed, and there's no runners to fend off like next-door's bamboo, so I've been happy to let it mature in its sole bed. Any ideas? The stems are single all the way to the ground. As the picture shows, new lightly toothed leaves appear in pairs and have a red edge as do their small stems back to the main vertical stem.

Picture: As a new user I can't post a link! Thanks to elsien who replaced my coded version with a link in the next post.

'Er indoors is dying to pull it out, the plant, and it's heading for the compost heaps unless I can ID it so a knowledgable decision can be made on its future. Thanks in advance, HG.

elsien

elsien

Does it die off in the winter and reappear in spring?

tori.k

Pyrus Calleryana chanticleer, I'd pull it out myself

Davesnave

Looks like a variety of Leycesteria formosa to me.

malebolge

Davesnave wrote: »

Looks like a variety of Leycesteria formosa to me.

And me. Evil thug of a plant - get it up before it grows any larger. I keep finding them in various parts of the garden so I think they're bird sown. Daughter had one, too - she thought the flowers were pretty so kept it, and it was a monster that killed off the other plants that had happily been growing there. Very hard to get rid of when established - in the end I 'tripped' on the way to her compost heap with ammonium sulphamate.

Holy_Genes

Hi elsien, It wanes a little over winter, but is still basically there and continues where it left off come spring.

Hi Davesnave, You could be onto something. A neighbour has one of those on the other side of my house. When this weather dies down, I'll go back and forth comparing the two. Mine has never flowered or berried, but perhaps it's too young. It is forming a clump in the bed, and pushing out the geraniums already present at one end, so that matches the 'invasive' description of it on some web sites. I'll report back.

Davesnave

I have one where little else thrives and I intend to have another in our wild area. Never had a problem with them myself.

Holy_Genes

Davesnave was correct: I compared the leaves and stems and it is the same as the neighbour's Leycesteria formosa. And the next day, thanks to all that rain, mine has flowered for the first time, making it pretty obvious. I did keep suggesting to the gardener that she water it to encourage it to do something, but she wasn't keen to water a 'weed'. :-) On informing the gardener of 'my' deduction, and that birds can spread the berries, there was a bit of pause and then the slow realisation that she'd taken off some of the longer overhanging branches last year, and stripped the berries off before chopping up for the compost heap; not wanting to later spread the berries in the compost. Rather than waste the berries, she then put on that empty bed for the birds...