This is growing like crazy (which is why I suspect it's invasive) in and at the edge of the woods around here. It can get some really huge leaves that shade out everything else, though it's not vining. (The honeysuckle is taking care of everything that grows vertically.)
It reminds me of something we called skunk cabbage when I was a child, but it doesn't stink when a leaf is broken.
are these leaves coming out of a rosette on the ground? do any plants have a tall stem in the middle with any seed head?
"No" to both questions, sallyg. I keep forgetting to take my camera with me which is why I brought back one of the mature leaves to photo. The younger plants have more rounded leaves. The get more elongated like this one, and pretty thick and tough.
I don't know this, and I don'tthink it's skunk cabbage either. good luck!
NGJ:
See if it is one of the Arctium bunch. These are herbaceous perennials, despite the size that they can attain.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/53500/index.html
If you have woody plants, then you need to get pics to show. Let us know if the plant has opposite or alternate leaf arrangement, etc.
I don't think it's Arcticum, VV. I can't remember seeing stalks or flowers on it, and there is no evidence now that it previously had any... it grows low to the ground and the leaves become very thick and large.
I took some more pics
Another
And another
Your first and second picture seem to be full of stalks, which seem to have clusters of cockleburs attached.
With my squinting, it looks like this one to me:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/53500/index.html
OK, next time I'm there I'll trace some of those stalks down into the ground. I thought they would be coming from the center of the plant, which I don't see, but maybe I'm just too careless.
Careless? Probably not. Aggravated and wanting to avoid clothes full of burs? Probably so.
The stalks could be from previous plants, and the leaves you see today are new seedlings. This is probaby one of those species that is biennial.
