Any One Identify This One?

[mike]

SORRY NO PHOTO.
:(
Found in Hampshire by the side of a stream - obviously needs damp/boggy conditions.
About two foot high with red stems, heart shapped green leaves that go to a point, have red stems and red veins.
Forms clumps that spread but not really rapidly.
White flowers very tiny individuals form a collective flat shape that looks like a single flower about the size of a thumb nail July & August. Turns into a seed which is rather like an elongated match head of little tiny balls - about half inch long.
Has a strong smell when touched or picked - very unusual but not a really horrible smell - a bit like sweet stagnent water!
In someways forms a clump not disimilar to dwarf Japanese knotweed!
Anyone any ideas have searched various books of wild flowers & garden flowers without result.
:confused:

[mike]

found out myself!! Its a form of Houttuynia chamelon

[Paul Narramore]

Ah, you mean Houttuynia cordata 'Chamaeleon'.;)

[Miranda]

Houttuynia cordata is, imho, one of the most evil plants on the planet. I know someone who has spent the last four years trying to get rid of it from her garden and I've been trying to get rid of it for two years. This plant is extremely invasive and should come with a warning.

You buy a sweet little pot of colourful leaves, put it in the ground and before you know it, it will have put out runners ten feet long and have spread through a whole bed, coming up amongst other plants. As you dig for the roots, the smell becomes nauseating - I never want to smell it again but will probably have to dig up a whole plant bed and sieve all the soil for three feet down in order to get rid of it.

Don't plant it.

[Paul Narramore]

Miranda
That's a new one on me. I hadn't heard that before. My own experience was to plant a solitary plant alongside our garden pond but it never trived and after two or three years it faded away. And from the sound of it, golly good then.:eek:

[Miranda]

You were lucky, Paul. Do a bit of searching and you'll find some real horror stories.

The weird thing was that, to begin with, it didn't smell too bad but after a while it started making me feel quite sick. I hope I can get rid of it.