Thank you Jim for the feedback! Can you take picture of the flower buds? Just in case they were ending up on those deer’s menu again. Hopefully those buds could yield more clue. Would wrapping tomatoes cage with chicken wire keeping deer off? I don’t have any experience with deer, just rabbits, they are easier to control. Looking forward to see the mystery plant’s flowers! Laura

Thanks for the response Laura. The Pluchea doesn’t quite look the same – especially the stem color. This thing is pretty much a light green all over. It’s also quite hairy all over. Stems and leaves have some pretty stiff hairs all over – leaves front and back. I did take a look at some more of these plants last night, and noticed that the petioles actually have minute wings between the stipules and main leaf blade, and as you near the apex of the plant, the leaves become sessile, and the wings/stipule form a complete undulating margin. Also I noticed some may be beginning to bloom, but we’ll see in a week or so. I’ll post more pix in that case. Thankfully there are multiple plants so the deer are unlikely to nibble them all away (unlike the ONE unknown plant next to my carport that I waited on for a couple of weeks that they topped JUST before it bloomed.) Grrrrr…

Hi Jim, regrettably I don’t have a guess. With the winged petioles, I’m wondering Boraginaceae or Asteraceae? But with the aromatic leaves plus the tap root, I’m wondering Pluchea genus? But with the winged petioles…? I’m currently growing a Pluchea species with similar looking serrated, aromatic leaves in my garden but no long winged petioles. Hopefully you will come up on one that maturing enough to flower. Best to you Jim and thanks for bringing us this mystery plant to learn about. Laura Link to one of the species in the Pluchea, stinkweed (P. camphorata). The petioles appear to have ‘wing’, ‘stipule’ (?) Click to enlarge. https://www.ipmimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5428197

This has reminded me of Lambsquarters, but it’s way to hairy for that. Anyone hazard a guess? I wish it had flowers so I could go farther with the ID key, but so far I haven’t seen the first bloom all this year. Can no one hazard a guess?