Whole plant

Acalypha rhomboidea (Common threeseed/three-seeded Mercury) -- or another Acalypha.

http://www.wildflower.org/gallery/species.php?id_plant=ACRH

Ooh. To pull or not to pull...

After looking it up, I'm thinking it may get pulled. I don't like pulling things; it makes me a little sad. But it doesn't *seem* to have many wonderful qualities.

it might make you sadder.. to have a couple hundred more next year ...

ken

lol
it might make you sadder.. to have a couple hundred more next year ...

So true. I have a bumper crop of it in my garden this year.

I learned recently that it is edible. The person who told me collected it to make a kind of Thai soup. So it does have some medicinal value.

If it's any comfort, that acalypha is an annual, so it will die soon anyway. It's next year's crop that you're heading off.

Thanks, all. It's got to go.

Found this is another part of the yard. Is this another Acalypha rhomboidea? Looks like I caught it way too late :(

It looks like acalypha in the foreground, but that tall spike is not an a. rhomboida seedhead. Are they the same plant?

BTW, that plant with the palmate leaf on the right looks like hellebore, which is a definite keeper.

I agree with Cercis. The leaves may be A. rhomboidea, but the seedhead doesn't match.

The seedheads are definitely attached to this plant. Now I'm curious what it could be.

Me too :-). Acalypha can produce flower spikes from the top like that, but the flowers typically have the same type of bracts as the ones that develop in the leaf axils. I don't see those bracts in your picture, but I could be overthinking it. Hopefully someone who knows more will see this and add clarity.

Close-up after I pulled it.