Celandine poppy and Yellow Archangel

Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a wildflower with widespread distribution throughout the eastern and central U.S.  But it must be relatively uncommon, as I've rarely seen it in the "wild."

It flourishes in our woodland garden, however, and my gardening companion has been happily moving around the numerous self-sowed plants down our woodland slope.

Celandine poppy flowers

The abundant rain (twice the normal amount) this last year has been beneficial for germination success in many species, it seems, from native to non-native alike.  There's a patch of garlic mustard below a non-gardening neighbor's fence that I have "pulling up" on my to-do list.  My gardening companion already got the patch along the ephemeral stream.  Yikes.

And an attractive European wildflower, but noxious in the Pacific Northwest, has appeared along the ephemeral stream, too.

We'd never seen it before. It turned out to be Lamium (or Lamiatstrum) galeobdolon (Yellow Archangel) in its variegated form.  Hmm.  Our British gardening neighbor up the street has some in her garden, she told me this morning, perhaps the source?  But perhaps from the other side of the woodland ravine, too.

Yellow archangel

It's apparently quite a difficult weed in the Pacific Northwest, spreading from stoloniferous bits and seeds into native woodland areas.  Hard to know what to make of that here.  It's looking quite robust at the moment, but it was extraordinarily wet this last year, so all sorts of things are popping up that we haven't seen before.