Hi everyone,

I need help identifying this plant that keeps popping up in a friend's garden.

I'm sorry I don't have better photos.

We weeded this garden very late this year, and so for the first time I noticed blooms on it - must have always pulled them before bloomheads opened in previous years. The blooms are hidden from view, under the canopy of the leaves.

The plant is not overly aggressive at all really; just keeps coming back in the same spot most likely because we don't get the root when we pull it. Probably because it's in with pachysandra and lily of the valley, whose root mat keeps the roots of this plant from coming up when we pull it.

This is a plant that grows in clumps/groupings,and is in a part-shade garden that has been neglected for some time. It pulls out fairly easily, but that is somewhat of an illusion because it often leaves roots in the ground. Roots are a bit rhizomous (is that a word?) - thick, about the size and diameter of an average human finger, although they are more vertical than horizontal.

The plant is about a foot and a half to two feet tall, and usually consists of a main stem, with about three shoots off the main stem. Each main stem grows from its own root (one root, one main stem/plant - I guess that makes it a running-type plant, although again, not really aggressively so). Each of those three secondary stems/shoots has three sets of leaves, with each set consisting of about 3 to five leaves. So each of the three stems has about 9 to 15 leaves. I hope that makes sense..?

The blooms seem to grow on a separate stem, which grows off the base of the main stem, and there are about 4 to 6 blooms per plant.

Here is a photo of the leaves. I'll post another photo below of the blooms.

Thanks for your help!
Dee