help me identify this plant

[Dana]

This plant is growing next to an abandoned house so I believe someone planted it there. It has spread half way around the house and is very difficult to walk thru. The stalks have a bamboo like appearance but aren't strong like bamboo, they can be snapped in two with a little effort. Their height is around ten feet. Very rapid growth of a foot or more in a week.

 I am thinking of taking some home but don't want to bring home a new problem any thoughts what it is?

[pigman]

That looks like poke-weed to me. It grows wild around here.

[baronthered]

That looks like poke-weed to me. It grows wild around here.

I agree Pman poke sallet. If you can get them while they are yung and still green they are some good greens. I like em mixed with spinach and mustard greens boiled then fried with a dash of salt. If you try and eat them when they are turning red or are red they are poisonous as all get out. At the very least you'll think you have drunk the water somewhere worse than mexico...

[Dana]

I googled poke weed and it does look like its the same plant. I have one more plant  I will have to get a photo of for you  to identify.

[Jeff]

If its poke weed, be sure to try and wash yer hands with the berries once. It will make them a most lovely shade of blue and they will stay that way.

[Dodgy Loner]

Actually, that is a plant with which I am very familiar. It is Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica). Unlike pokeweed, knotweed has hollow stems that give it the appearance of bamboo. It is also much larger and more prolific. I had the pleasure of helping remove a patch of it from an old homesite in the national forest last fall, and I can tell you from experience that eradication will be problematic due to the prolific rhizomes that it sprouts from. A late summer herbicide application is your best bet.

The Purdue Extension website has some great information: Japanese knotweed

[Dana]

O.K. now I am thinking it is Japanese Knotwood after reading Dodgey's link. The stem's are hollow and it does look like bamboo.

[evergreen]

we have this growing by us in central wisconsin. thought it lookkind of cool until it flowered the flowers had a smell like rotting meat. twas pretty nasty.
-j-

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, it's very hard to get rid of, what Dodgy said. I have one little sprig that comes in under a cedar (it was planted there 20 years ago before the cedar), which I pull every summer. I see it in front of a lot of abandoned places, grows in a ever increasing clump. Looks like bamboo and that's what folks call it here, but winter kills it down.