I've never known this as Bethany or anything else but they are growing in my wild flower area. I like them and have never found them dangerous to other flora or fauna. We have a friend, a professional horticulturalist, who may be able to put a name to it but she is on holiday at the moment but if you want, I'll ask her when she gets back.

Whoops. I sent my horticulturalist an email of this picture. She reckons it is almost certainly a member of the Solanaceae family which includes solanum and nightshade, in which case there is a good chance it is poisonous to animals. So although my dog would never eat it, it is coming out, unless slugs love it and it is poisonous to them - but I doubt it. Can you give us a description of the flowers?

Thanks, Sarraceniac - I THOUGHT it might be a member of that family hence my slight worry in case it was poisonous. It doesn't seem to have noticeable flowers just those berry-looking things in the photo - unless those ARE flowers? The bees and other insects seem to love it - otherwise I would have jettisoned it already, especially as I have some growing elsewhere, right through my hydrangea! It grows to several ft. high. The guy who cuts my grass swerves round it when he finds it (he's the one who keeps bees!)
I'd be interested in any further info from anyone? Thanks!

There isn't a plant called Bethany, unless its some local name most of us don't know - there is one called Betony, which is the common name for Stachys officinalis. That plant is attractive to bees, and it may be that's the one the person meant, but this plant definitely isn't that. It looks like one of the nightshades to me too - the stems are black which would, in Britain, indicate Black Nightshade, but the leaves on this one aren't really right for that. Maybe you have other forms of nightshade there which we don't have here - the berry formation is indicative of nightshade of some sort.

Thanks Bamboo, Jean will be pleased that another horticulturalist agrees with her. Like most people (and as discussed on here recently) she doesn't go mad if she is wrong, just pleased when she is right.

I'm pleased when I'm wrong too - that's how you learn! It ain't comfortable, but it's valuable, lol

Thanks everyone for your info and suggestions on this...
I started 2 question threads on this plant 'by mistake' (1st one on 21 July - I'm still learning about this site, and my first query had 2 different ID requests, one of which (hibiscus) was quickly answered, I didn't know how to pursue the unanswered one!)

Still not sure what it is - a deadnettle has been suggested, but since it doesn't seem to have flowers and the leaves aren't 'furry' (don't know the right term!) and it's 3 or 4 ft high I'm not entirely sure?

Anyway it's coming out, in view of the uncertainty - I don't want a poison risk to any kids visiting my patch!

(Tough luck, bees!)

Thanks again, 'MJ'

It's not deadnettle (Lamium) - they don't form berries like this.

I thought probably not, Bamboo... but I'm not very expert, unlike you! And I do realise that plants vary greatly even within the same classification... And I'm a bad photographer!

There are loads of wildflowers and cultivated plants I don't recognise in this 'gone wild' garden of mine - not so much because it's in France (we do dandelions here, too!) but because of the different soil I guess from what I had before, and also different gardeners' styles...

This particular plant presumably exists in England too (see Sarra above), but is going to have to stay a bit of a mystery, I think... And I'd better start growing something else bee-friendly! (The poor brutes are desperate this year especially as we, like you, have had fairly rotten weather...)

Thanks for the help everybody!

Grow lavender. I have about 10 different types and the bees go dippy over them. :o)))

Yep, I can confirm that - the lavender seems alive because there are so many. I wanted to cut some back in someone's garden today, as I only go there every month, but although the flowers are nearly done, I couldn't cut because of the huge numbers of bees.

what kind of lavender would be best? (French?! - I've always wanted that with its showy flowers, but it didn't like Norfolk...)

I have lavender here too, but it's a very old bush here which hardly flowers and is really manky, can I propagate and/ or renovate it and if so, how?

(it seems to have a "seedling" unfortunately which is in my stone "border"stones can I try moving this?)

many thanks (ps bees at present like a pale yellow sage-like thingy, it's so poor a photo I daren't submit it for a question, but for any IDs see my photos...?

many thanks as always, regards MJ

Any sort of lavender that you like the look of. You can easily strike cuttings from semi-hardwood twigs from your existing one in a mix of peat, grit, and sand or even compost, grit and sand. I have one that has gone leggy and will be taking cuttings in September after it has finished flowering then dispatching it. I find that heel cuttings (they are the ones just torn gently from the main stems leaving a 'heel') take the easiest but pieces just snipped off with scissors are nearly as good. If you have or can get rooting hormone powder that helps but don't ask me what the French for it is. They don't like getting their feet wet, that is their roots standing wet, thus the grit in the cutting mix for drainage.

Yep, take cuttings of the one you have - they do seed themselves sometimes, which is probably where the one in the rocky part came from. Expected useful life span is about 5 years, after that they get really woody, and you can't cut into old wood on a lavender, they don't recover from that. Best clipped over twice or three times a year, after a main flush of flowers each time, taking about an inch of foliage at the same time.
I've had a look at the yellow flowered thingy - I don't recognise it, but its impossible to tell what the leaves are like from the photo. Do the leaves have a scent, if its like sage?

hi Bamboo it's really sad but since the 2 AVC (strokes) I have suffered my sense of smell - always poor (except when pregnant!) has almost disappeared. Dark red roses, manure, fresh-cut grass, oniony stew - but not much else, alas.

I am putting photo of the plant and its leaf on my photos - it definitely DOES smell, but you would have to tell me whether it's of sage or other! (ps this one is growing in a sunny rock garden, but its cousin seems to be flourishing in an oak etc. shaded glade lower down my garden?)

Bamboo. You should have pointed out that lavender grown from seed does not often come true to type. Cuttings are the only way. Wanna buy an apple tree grown from a pip? Lol.

Well, blow me, I never knew that, Sarraceniac, and didn't check either, slapped wrist for me then. My only experience of them popping up unbidden is a friend's garden, and she just digs 'em up and puts them where she wants them.
Monjardin- I notice another picture of something has appeared in your photos ,but sorry to say its out of focus...

Re your last comment Bamboo, sorry about the out-of-focus picture of my latest plant, I tried to photograph a sprig on a table-mat on my lap (!), as it was against the setting sun outside so only an outline... I must have been at 'le vin rouge' too much hence the shaky photo!

Thanks for trying to help!

I haven't yet got to the stage of trying to breed true to type, Sarraceniac, if it grows and will stand being moved, and doesn't invade: those are my first 3 criteria! Here we have hollyhocks growing 'wild' (in all the wrong places of course!) and they seem to vary from a very pale pink or pale yellow right down to purple and burgundy... at random... nice to get the surprise I find (though one day no doubt I'll get to curse a "mauve" one in a "hot border", if I ever get to those heights!)

thanks, both...

Re the picture at the top of this thread, and the other member saying it was Bethany - I wonder if whoever it was who said that meant Bryony... not sure it is Bryony though, but Bryony is at least similar.

Bamboo thanks for your last answer - I didn't mean to do a mystification about who the 'other member' was - I just got confused with all the different user names /avatars/ changes etc. and then some people reply to each other using each others' "real" names because obviously they know each other, personally! Forgive a new member's bewilderment... (I wish like e-mail we could directly copy each other on discussions that have wandered a bit from the original question(s).)

I think this particular plant/weed is defeating all our attempts at a positive ID. You said (in another context) I think, that you weren't entirely sure about IDs for wild plants; and the lady who kindly first tried to ID it (I think her username is Bilbobaggins) said perhaps it could be, Bethany then Betony; and it doesn't seem to me to be a nightshade despite its little round thingys - partly because it had no perceptible flowers - and if it's a deadnettle I can't identify one like it. The guy here on the ground who likes it and detours round it when he mows grass, on behalf of his bees, has no idea what it's called (even in French!) and since it's not very decorative and it might be noxious, it's being rooted out here by me, despite his "prohibition" - though if those berry-things are really seeds, I might be a bit late this year!

Ain't nature puzzling... many thanks everyone for all the trouble you've taken...

The presence of the berries means its already flowered without your noticing - you could just leave one plant in place and photograph it when it flowers next year, but as you say, its probably easier to just root it all out. You may find others pop up on their own next year anyway.